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^HERE 
SHALL BE 
DARKNESS 



by C. L. MOORE 

FEBRUARY • 1942 



F£B. '43 









Quick action may ward off a cold or nip it in the bud if it is 
just stariinK- Begin gargling with Listerine Antiseptic at the 
first him of trouble. Don't dilute it. Use full strength. 



These may be the first signs that troublesome germs associ- 
ated with a cold are attempting to invade the throat tissue and 
set up infection. 




NOTE HOW LISTERINE GARGLE REDUCED GERMS 

■ The drawings illustrate height 
^V.JVy of range in germ reductions 

on mouth and throat surfaces in / 

■ latest cases before and after gar- [. * , 

1,7 giingListeriiieAtuiscptic. Fifteen k 
— minutes after gargling, germ re- .Jf-; 

■ ductionsup to%. 7 % were noted; 

{torn and even one hour after, germs afte 

were still reduced asmuch as 80 %- 



Listerine reaches way back on throat surfaces to kill millions 
of the "secondary invaders." These bacteria, say many author- 
ities, cause most of the di.stressing aspects of a cold. 



For impressive evidence of Li.sterine’s ama;^»S power against 
the very germs associated with colds aod*CCompanying sore 
throat read carefully the test data summati^io *be panel above. 



Test Results Showed: 



FEWER COLDS and SORE THROATS for LISTERINE USERS 



The above statemcQt is OTie for you to 
remember the next time you feel a cold 
or simple sore throat coming on. 

It is highly impre.ssive when you re- 
alize that it reflects the results of care- 
fully conducted tests during a ten year 
period of research. 

First, these tests showed that those 
groups which gargled Listerine Anti- 
septic twice a day contracted fewer colds 
than the non-using groups. 

Furthermore, these colds w'ere milder 
and did not last as long as those of non- 
u.scrs of Listerine Anci.scptic. 

This success, we believe, must be due 
to the ability of Listerine Antiseptic to 



combat the troublesome bacteria w'hich 
inhabit and multiply on mouth and 
throat surfaces . , . the very bacteria that 
many authorities say are responsible for 
most of the distressing aspects of a cold. 

In ocher words, Listerine Antiseptic 
often seems to give Nature the helping 
hand she needs in ctjmbating sucli germs 
when fatigue, drafts, wet feet, or ex- 
posure have w'cakened body resistance 
so that germs find the tissue easier to 
attack. 

Gargie Listerine Antiseptic systemati- 
cally as a precaution against colds and 
as a first aid when you feel 
a cold or simple sore throat 



coming ^n. It may save you real trouble. 
Buy the large size economy bottle to- 
day and save money. 

Lambert Pharmacal Co., St. Louis, dio. 



WATCH YOUR THROAT 

v^re illness often starts 

LISTERINE THROAT LIGHT 



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ASTDUKDING 

SCIENCE-FICTION 



Contents toi February, 1942, VoL XXVIII, No. 6 

John W. Campbell, Jr., Editor, Catherine Tarrant, Asst. Editor 



Novelettes 



THERE SHALL BE DARKNESS C. L. Moore ... 9 

The last commander of Earth’s legions on Venus is called home 
— back to a failing, dying empire. Should he go and die with 
the empire— or stay, trying to start a new upward surge — 

THE REBELS Kurt von Rochen . . 49 

The Kilkenny Cats hadn’t succeeded in killing themselves; Colo- 
nel Gailbraith prevented that. So now they’d kill Gailbraith— 

Short Stories 

THE SORCERER OF RHIANNON ..... Leigh Brackett . . 36 

The Martians had survival power — power to survive in their 
own way, until a new race reached their planet — 

STARTING POINT Raymond F. Jones . 66 

When textbook formulas begin to work in spaceship flight, men 

tend to forget pioneering, .forget there are other ways of doing 
things than the textbook ways — 

MEDUSA Theodore Sturgeon . 86 

Nice way to start off a voyage — have the glad news that every 
man on your ship has been scientifically and carefully turned 
into a madman, and that you alone will be sane — 



Article 

THE LONG-TAILED HUNS (Conclusion) . . L. Sprague de Camp 62 

There are plants, too, that have succeeded in living in man’s 
home areas, despite man’s most ardent efforts to extinguish 
them. And for an organism that can’t dodge — that’s tenacity! 

Serial 

SECOND STAGE LENSMEN (Conclusion) . . E. E. Smith, Ph. D. . 93 

The fourth and last installment of “Skylark” Smith’s great new 
serial finds Kinnison in the deadliest plot of all— 



Readers’ Departments 

THE EDITOR’S PAGE <» 

IN TIMES TO COME 35 

Department of Prophecy and Future Issues. 

THE ANALYTICAL LABORATORY 35 

An Analysis of Readers’ Opinions. 

BRASS TACKS • 

Concerning Purely Personal Preferences. 

Illustrations by Cartier, Kolliker, Kramer, Orban and Rogers 



OUT THIKD 
FRIDAY 
EACH MONTH 
NEXT ISSUE ON 
SALE FEB. 20th 
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20c per COPY 

Printed in the U.S.A. 



Cover by Rogers 



Monthly publication issued by Street & Smith Publications, Incorporated, 79 Seventh Avenue, 
New York City. Allen L. Crammer, President; Henry W. Ralston, Vice President; 
Gerald H. Smith, Secretary and Treasurer. Copyright, 1942, In U. 8. A. and Great Britain by 
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The editorial contents of this magazine have not been published before, are protected by copy- 
right and cannot be reprinted without the publisher’s permission. All stories In this maguine 
are fiction. No actual persons are designated either by name or character. Any similarity is 
coincidental. 



STREET & SMITH PUBLICATIONS, INC. • 79 SEVENTH AVE., NEW YORK 





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FRESH BWTBRIES LAST 10N6ER...^Xi«iife DATE-LII 







SUPERNOVA CENTAURUS 



More than once, science-fiction has considered 
the consequences of having old Sol become Nova 
Solis. Any such stories which suggested man 
could “dig in” here on Earth and weather the cos- 
mic storm of sheer energy and gases heated to a 
point that makes “incandescent” as inadequate as 
“coolish” in reference to liquid helium, are plain 
silly. 

But the violence of a nova is, on the cosmic 
stage, a fourth or fifth-rate spectacle. One of the 
most common of the more spectacular things, of 
course, but not to be rated with a direct collision 
of stars — itself probably divided into two orders 
of spectacle; first order being a collision between 
a star made up of terrene matter and a contrater- 
rene-matter star, and a second-order spectacle in- 
volving simply two stars of the same matter type. 
Either one of those latter two occurrences should 
be something worth seeing — from an immense and 
preferably intergalactic distance. 

Third rank can be provisionally assigned to su- 
pernovas. An “ordinary” nova — they seem to oc- 
cur about one per year per galaxy — produces a 
star with a temporary brilliance of about Magni- 
tude — 5.0. The Sun has a magnitude of +4.8 or 
so. Since the scale of magnitudes is logarithmic, 
not simply an arithmetic progression, such a nova 
would be about ten thousand times as brilliant as 
the Sun. Some novae radiate as much as one hun- 
dred thousand times as furiously as the Sun. 

But the nova condition, furiously violent though 
it is, is not utterly beyond restraint. Some stars — 
an entire class of suns known as the “brightest- 
star class,” representing apparently the top limit 
of energy conversion which any stellar mass can 
keep under stable control — normally, continuously 
radiate aeon after aeon, at the same stupendous rate 
that ordinary suns can attain only in a stellar in- 
stant of explosion. Deneb, in the constellation 
Cygnus*, has a normal, natural radiation rate 
greater than that of most novae. It, with an abso- 
lute magnitude of — 8.7, is 260,000 times as bril- 
liant as Sol. 

But no normal stellar mass can control the su- 
preme violence of energy radiation that a super- 
nova releases. Supernovae in extragalactic nebu- 
lae have been observed and measured which radi- 
ated in their brief career, at a rate equal to the 
combined, total radiation of an entire galaxy of 
hundreds of millions of stars. Attaining an abso- 
lute magnitude of — 16.6, they can outshine four 
hundred million normal stars, ranging from per- 
haps 1/10, 000th as bright as Sol all the way up 

* At this time of year, Cygnus is low in the northeast at dawn. 
It will be best visible at midnight in June. Rigel in Orion (obs. 
mag. — 6.76=17,600 suns) is low in the south now — the second 
brightest visible from Earth 



through normal 1/lOth to 100 times Sol’s brigfe% 
ness to “brightest star” class suns and a nova or 
two, perhaps, combined and totaled. 

We’ve considered what might happen if Sol 
itself went nova. If it should go supernova, no 
worse could happen ; Earth and all life on it would 
be fused and volatilized in either case. But what 
would happen to mankind if even one of the nearer 
stars other than Sol went into the supernova con- 
dition? Alpha Centaura, or, perhaps, the entire 
multiple-star system that is Alpha Centaura? It’s 
conceivable — since we know, as yet, nothing what- 
ever about the actual mechanism of supernova 
explosions — that the explosion of one of the mul- 
tiple system might touch off the others. What 
effect would that terrible flood of energy have on 
Earth? 

In effect, it would be equivalent to bringing all 
the stars of the galaxy — the four thousand or so 
we can see with the eye, and the other two hun- 
dred million or so, to within 4.5 light years, con- 
centrating them in one spot — and then bringing 
all the stars of three or four more entire galaxies 
into the same spot. 

The effect on Earth? 

A big boom in the tourist business to South 
America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand, 
probably, some unusually brilliant aurora australis 
effects, and a minute amount of melting in the 
south polar ice cap, if it happened to occur during 
the southern hemisphere’s summer. The ice caps 
wouldn’t be affected at all if it happened during 
May. June, July or August. There might be a 
slightly warmer summer in the whole southern 
hemisphere; the northern hemisphere would be 
entirely cheated. Of course, if it happened that 
the explosion took place at such a time that the 
light reached Earth — four and a half years later 
— while the Sun was in the same direction from 
Earth, the spectacle would be very minor indeed. 
The nearby supernova would be fully visible even 
in daylight, of course, but a star-sized point of 
light in the daylight skies would pass unnoticed 
by any but careful watchers. 

In fact, if that situation did occur, the only 
ones who’d be particularly burned up by the ex- 
plosion of energy would be the unbearably frus- 
trated astronomers. Imagine having a genuine, 
even a multiple, supernova in their own back yard, 
at an ideal observational distance — and the glare 
of the sun blasting into their instruments! 

No, it isn’t that a supernova is a rather inconsid- 
erable sort of thing. 

The trouble is that even the least of interstellar 
distances is a gulf of emptiness the mind of man 
cannot truly conceive. The Editor. 







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THERE SHALL BE HARKMSS 

By C. fi. Moore 



• Earth Empire was crumbling— and the captain knew it as he was 
ordered back, with the last of the troops stationed on Venus. The 
last civilization of the Solar System was falling into eternal darkness. 



as Mars and Jupiter had before it 

Illustrated by 

Blue Venusian twilight filled the room where 
Quanna sat combing her hair before the glass. It 
was very quiet here. Quanna drew the long, pale 
strands through her comb with a somnolent 
rhythm, meeting her own eyes in the mirror. Re- 
flected there she could see the windows behind 
her, blowing curtains that veiled the tremendous 
blue peaks which walled in Darva from the world. 
From far away a thunderous echo of avalanche 
shook the evening air a little and rumbled into 
silence. 



And Venus could not be roused— 

F. Kramer 

No one — not even another Venusian — could have 
guessed what was going on behind the pale, trans- 
lucent oval of Quanna’s face, the unchanging dark 
eyes. She wore a blue-green robe the color of the 
evening sky over Darva, and in the blue dusk her 
hair took on a faintly greenish cast. She was 
thinking of murder. 

Behind her the door creaked. A man in uniform 
came into the room wearily, running his fingers 
through his black hair. The green star of Earth 
glittered on his tunic. He grinned at Quanna. 



10 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



“Get me a drink, will you?” he asked her in 
English. “Lord, how tired I am!” 

Quanna was on her feet in a rustle of satin and 
a cloud of faint perfume. Her green-blond hair 
was so fine it seemed to float upon the air as she 
turned. If ever there was any betrayal of feeling 
upon Quanna’s pale Venusian face, it showed ten- 
derness when she looked at James Douglas, com- 
mander of the last Terrestrial Patrol left on Venus. 

“Come and lie down,” she said in her gentlest 
voice. Her English was almost as easy as his own. 
“You do need a drink, poor darling. You’ve been 
working late again, Jamie?” 

He nodded, letting her draw him to the deep 
couch below the windows which opened upon the 
high blue mountains and the roofs of Darva. She 
stood for a moment watching his face as he re- 
laxed with a sigh upon the cushions. The couch 
creaked a little beneath him, for Douglas was a 
big man, built in the tradition of his Scottish an- 
cestors upon another world, almost a giant among 
the slim Venusians. He was barrel-chested, thick 
through the shoulders; and his heavy black hair 
had gone frosty at the temples quite definitely 
in the last few months. Jamie Douglas had had 
much to think about, in solitude, since the last 
dispatches from Base came in. 

He buried his crooked nose in the glass Quanna 
brought and drank thirstily, letting the cool, 
watered whiskey go burning down his throat. 

“Nothing like segir,” he grinned up at the girl. 
“I’ll miss it when” — he caught himself — “if I’m 
ever recalled to Earth.” 

Quanna’s eyes veiled. An Earth woman would 
have pounced upon the implication in that remark 
and dragged it into daylight. The Venusian girl 
waited. They both knew she would weave it into 
conversation perhaps hours later, worming the 
forbidden information out of him irresistibly, im- 
perceptibly, as she had so often done in the past. 
Douglas cursed himself silently and gulped segir 
again. 

Quanna’s gaze lingered on his face as he drank. 
Twenty years under the flowing cloud-tides of 
Venus had not bleached his dark skin to pallor, 
but they had set their own marks upon his face. 
The broken nose was a memory of a mountain 
ambush in his subaltern days, and the long, fading 
scar above one ear an insignia of the fight in which 
he had won his captaincy. Even as long ago as 
that Imperial Earth had begun to feel her fingers 
slip upon her colonial worlds, and there had been 
fierce fighting in the mountains of Venus. There 
still was, but it would not last much longer — 
Douglas held out his emptied glass. “Another,” 
he said, and loosened his tunic collar. “I’m tired.” 
Quanna laid a long, cool hand upon his forehead 
in a gesture of reticent tenderness before she 
turned away to the little pantry where the ice and 
the segir were. The long folds of her robe hid 



what she was doing, but she did not drop a tablet 
into the drink this time. There had been enough 
in the first, and besides — besides she had informa- 
tion to draw out of him before she went away. 

She pulled up a hassock and took her monochord 
harp from the. wall after he had begun on the 
second drink, and began to pluck a plaintive mel- 
ody from the single string, stopping it against its 
movable bridges with an intricate fingering. 
Douglas nodded in time with the music and began 
to hum, smiling at her. 

“Funny,” he mused. “You’re a cosmopolitan, 
my dear, even if you’ve never stepped a foot off 
Venus. Scottish ballad on a Martian harp, trans- 
posed to Venusian melody. What an old song it 
is, Quanna.” He began to sing the words softly, 
his voice unmusical: 

“The Otterburn’s bonny burn. 

It’s pleasant there to be. 

But there is naught on Otterburn 
To feed my men and me — ” 

He shook himself a little and quieted. Quanna 
saw something dark and unhappy move across his 
face, and she struck one of two quivering notes 
from the string and said in a voice pitched to the 
music, so that it scarcely broke the silence at all : 

“I’d like to see Earth, Jamie. Could I go back 
with you?” 

“I wish you could,” he answered in a low voice. 
“It won’t be easy, my dear — I’ll miss so much on 
Venus. I — ” He sat up suddenly and scowled at 
her under black brows. “That wasn’t fair, Quanna ! 
You wouldn’t catch me like that if I weren’t tired. 
Oh, yes, damn it, I suppose you’ll have to know 
soon, anyhow. Orders came today. We’re going 
back.” 

“The last of the Patrols,” murmured Quanna, 
still stroking the harp to faint music. “Venus 
will be free again, Jamie?” 

His heavy brows, drew down again above the 
crooked nose. “Free?” he said bitterly. “Oh, yes, 
free for Vastari and his cutthroats, if that’s what 
you’re thinking of. There’ll be no more safety 
anywhere on Venus, if that’s what freedom means 
to you. All this culture we’ve tried to build up 
in our three hundred years will crash in — oh, three 
hundred days, or less, once the protection of the 
Patrol fails. You’ll have barbarism back again, 
my sweet. Is that what freedom means to a 
Venusian?” 

She smiled at him, her face pale in the gather- 
ing twilight. 

“Jamie, Jamie,” she rebuked him gently. “Our 
ways were good enough before the Earthmen came. 
And you’ll be going home — ” 

He set down his glass half emptied, as if the 
thought had closed his throat. Looking out be- 
tween the long, swaying draperies, he said heavily : 
“Oh, sure — I was born there, forty-odd years 




THERE SHALL BE DARKNESS 



U 



ago. I suppose it’s home. But — I’ll miss Venus, 
Quanna.” He reached out for her hand. “I’ll miss 
you — I . . . I’m sleepy, Quanna. Play ‘Otterburn’ 
again, will you, my dear? I think I’ll have a nap 
before dinner.” 

When Douglas was breathing evenly, Quanna 
put a pillow straighter under his black head, pulled 
a light coverlet over him and hung the harp away. 
In her bedroom she took down a velvet cloak of 
deep emerald-green and changed her sandals to 
riding boots of soft leather. 

With the dark cloak hooding her, she paused by 
the door and touched a panel that slid inward 
without a sound. Not even the Earthman who 
designed the house knew about that panel, or 
about many other secret things which the Ve- 
nusian workmen had built into the headquarters 
of the Terrestrial Patrol. 

Quanna took a pistol from a shelf inside the 
panel and buckled it about her waist over the 
satin gown she wore. Her fingers lingered on a 
long, flat box on the shelf and she drew it oiit 
hesitantly, glancing over her shoulder around the 
empty room. 

Inside the box, bedded in velvet, lay a dagger 
with a silver haft and a long glass blade. Quanna 
took it out of its nest and tilted the crystal to 
the light. Venusian characters were traced in 
water colors on the blade. On one side they de- 
clared in crimson, “Vastari Shall Be King,” and 
on the other were the simple characters that 
spelled a name, “James Douglas.” By a coinci- 
dence, the Venusian nqme for Douglas had the 
same meaning as his Scottish patronym in the 
ancient Gaelic — Dhu Glas. Both meant “the dark 
man.” 

The dagger Quanna held was a ceremonial 
weapon, that could be used only once. It had 
never been used — yet. The crimson lettering 
would wash off at the first touch of any moisture. 
And the blade would splinter in its wound. It 
was meant to splinter. It had been given to 
Quanna six months past, with great ceremony. 
She should have used it long ago. 

She laid it back in its box and closed the panel 
quickly. She woke in the blue night sometimes, 
trembling, out of dreams about that glass dagger. 

She drew the green cloak about her and went 
out swiftly. No one but the Venusian servants 
saw her pass, and they made furtive obeisance 
and looked after her with reverent eyes. So did 
the grooms in the stable where her saddled horse 
stood waiting. One of them said, “The waterfall 
cave, lady, up toward Thunder Range,” and gave 
her the grave salute due Venusian rank. Quanna 
nodded and took the reins. 

The Earth officer on duty at the outer gate 
never saw her pass. His men drew his attention 
away just long enough for the cloaked figure on 



the padding dark horse to slip like a shadow out 
of the gate, and the young Earthman could have 
sworn afterward that no one had gone that way. 

The horse took to the rising trail outside Darva 
with its padded gait that has a rocking-chair 
smoothness. Even the horses of Venus go fur- 
tively, on silent feet. This one climbed steadily 
up the twisting trail through the blue dusk which 
passes for night in the zone where Darva lies. 

Night and day have only roughly equivalent 
terms in the Venusian tongues, but there is a slow 
rhythm of thermals over a broad belt of Dayside, 
caused by the libration of the planet, that gives 
something corresponding to them. There are pe- 
riods of dim-blue chill, and periods of opalescent 
noons when the sun is a liquid blaze behind high 
mists. The intervals are months long in some 
parts of Dayside, but here the tremendous moun- 
tains create air currents of their own, and the 
cloud-tides have a much briefer rhythm, though 
still too varied to make Venusians clearly under- 
stand night and day. 

The great blue mountains loomed purple and 
violet in the dusk as Quanna rode up the trail. 
She could hear countless waterfalls tinkling and 
trickling away like music all around her, a back- 
ground to the slow, far-off thunder of a rockslide 
that shook the cliffs with its echoes. 

The lifting crags that rushed straight up a 
thousand feet into the clouds were shocking to 
Earth eyes even after a lifetime on Venus, but 
Quanna scarcely noticed the familiar sheer cliffs 
of purple rock hanging like doom itself above 
her as she climbed. She had been born among 
these cliffs, but she did not mean to die here. 
If she had her way, she would die on another 
planet and be buried under the smooth green soil 
of Earth, where sunlight and starlight and moon- 
light changed in a clear sky she could not quite 
imagine, for all the tales she had heard. 

The cavern she was seeking lay two hours high 
in the towering peaks above Darva. No one but 
a Venusian could have found it in less than days. 
Both Quanna and her horse knew the path well 
enough, but it was a difficult climb even for them, 
and when they came out into the cathedral-walled 
canyon where a thin waterfall swayed like smoke, 
the horse’s sides were heaving with the steepness 
of the climb. 

In these narrow walls the waterf all made a thun- 
derous music. Quanna drew her cloak over her 
face and rode straight through the smoking veil 
of water, into the Gothic arch of the cavern be- 
yond. She whistled three clear, liquid notes as 
she came, and heard answering music echo from 
the walls, piercing the roar of the waterfall. 

Around two bends firelight flickered. Quanna 
slid off the horse into the waiting arms of servants, 
and went down a sparkling sandy slope toward the 




12 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



fire. Light danced bewilderingly upon a fairyland 
of crystalline columns which slow centuries had 
built of dripping water here. It was an Aladdin 
cave of flashing jewels in the firelight. 

Of the group by the fire, all but one man rose 
as Quanna came forward, her scarlet boots show- 
ing and fading with delicate precision beneath her 
emerald cloak. Quanna had been trained meticu- 
lously in every rite that befits a Venusian woman, 
and ceremonious behavior was not the least of her 
knowledge. Even her gait was traditional as she 
approached the men before the fire. 

They had risen — 'all but the hooded old one — 
not in deference to her rank or her womanhood, 
for women are not held highly on Venus, but be- 
cause she was an important emissary bringing 
news of the enemy. And had they had reason to 
think her news would be bad or her prestige in 
the enemy camp lowered, they would not have 
risen. Under the elaborate ceremony of Venusian 
courts is a basis of dog-eat-dog which shocks 
Earthmen. Venusians scorn the unsuccessful and 
toady to the strong with a certain courtliness 
which ingratiates even as it repels. 

The richly colored robes of the men made points 
of jewel colors dance along the crystalline walls 
as they moved. A young man pushed impetuously 
out among them and came forward, his crimson 
cloak swinging from supple shoulders, his long 
fair hair swinging, too, as he came to meet the girl. 
The two of them were as alike in looks as blood 
relation can make man and woman. 

Quanna took both his hands with the exact de- 
gree of deference which was due from her tem- 
porary man-status as important spy. Vastari’s 
face blazed with impatient eagerness as Quanna 
exchanged the proper ceremonious greetings with 
the group of tribe leaders around the fire. It 
amused her a little to let her royal brother wait 
upon her. She met the fierce stares of the other 
men composedly, too accustomed all her life to 
seeing that avid hope for disaster in every face 
to notice it much now. No Venusian rises to in- 
fluence without: knowing very well the eager, 
searching stare of rivals hungry for a sign of 
weakness. 

Last of all she smiled at the hooded figure by 
the fire, who gave her back a greeting in a harsh, 
hissing voice that was very pleasant to her ears. 

“Well?” demanded Vastari, pulling her to a 
seat upon cushions by the fire as the last cere- 
monies fell silent and the leaders grouped wolf- 
ishly around to listen. “Well, how goes it, sister? 
Is the glass knife broken yet?” 

“Not yet,” said Quanna, making her voice low 
and confident. “The Earthmen have a fable about 
a goose that laid golden eggs. It’s still too soon 
to kill ours, brother. The Dark Man gave me 
great news only a few hours ago.” She used a 
Venusian term of time measurement which is so 



complex that few Earthmen ever master it. Watch- 
ing the avid eyes fixed upon her all around the 
fire, she went on: “The last Patrol is leaving Ve- 
nus, The orders came in today.” 

Vastari smacked his ringed hands together and 
cried out something exultant in a voice too choked 
for articulation. The fire always smoldering be- 
hind his eyes blazed up with all but perceptible 
violence. 

“Leaving!” he cried. “So they’ve come to it at 
last. Do you hear, all of you? That means free- 
dom! Venus under Venusian rule, after three 
hundred years of Earth tyranny! Is it true, 
Quanna?” 

“True enough, surely,” said a harsh voice be- 
hind him. They all turned. The cloaked figure 
at the fireside had thrown back his hood from a 
crest of white hair and was smiling at them sadly 
now, horny lids drooping over his eyes. “I’ve 
seen it coming all my life, children. Mars was 
great once, too, you see.” He lifted bony shoul- 
ders in a shrug. 

“But aren’t you glad, Ghej?” Vastari spun to- 
ward him, scarlet cloak flying with the motion. 
Everything he did had a quicksilver volatility. 
“The freedom we were fighting for, put right in 
our hands? No more hiding in the mountains for 
us, Ghej! No more Earth laws! A free Venus, 
after three hundred years of tyranny!” 

The old Martian lifted his peaked brows. 

“Is freedom always good, then? Freedom can 
mean anarchy, my boy.” 

Vastari snapped his fingers impatiently. “Out 
of anarchy, something may grow,” he said. “Un- 
der tyranny, nothing can. You’ll help us, won’t 
you, Ghej?” 

Ghej looked up somberly under his triangular 
lids. “Against Earth? You don’t need help 
against the Imperial Planet, son. Earth has 
brought her own ruin upon her, and nothing we 
can do will affect that, I know. I saw Mars fall.” 

He put his chin in his hand and stared into 
the fire under heavy lids. Ghej had a strange way 
of talking about the past of millenniums ago as 
if he himself had been present. It was the result 
of the vivid three-dimensional pictorial records 
by which all Martians learn their history in child- 
hood. 

Vastari’s face, as he turned away, was uncon- 
sciously eloquent with the impatience of the young 
for the dreaming old. 

One of the tribe leaders leaned forward, jutting 
a scarred, wplfish face above his robe of apricot 
velvet. His eyes glittered at Quanna. 

“She brings news the old Martian could have 
told us years ago,” he declared, his voice jealous 
and eager. “That same news my own spies will 
bring me tomorrow from the city. What other 
reasons has she fof calling herself our equal? I 




THERE SHALL BE DARKNESS 



13 



say, let her kill the Earthman and go back to the 
harem where she belongs.” 

There was a rising of voices around the fire, 
some few in agreement, most deprecating not so 
much the sentiment as the crude way in which it 
had been put. The true Venusian prefers his 
malice more deftly expressed. 

Quanna faced them equably. Showing no re- 
sentment — it did not behoove a woman to resent 
openly anything a man might say — she declared 
in a voice pitched low: 

“To us in the city it doesn’t look so simple, 
lord. With the right knowledge, we may glean 
much from the Earthmen before they go.” 

The scarred hillman pounded his velvet knee 
with a clenched fist. “I say fight as we planned!” 
he roared. “Fight and conquer and loot, before 
they can get away from us! It was good enough 
for our fathers, wasn’t it? What do we want a 
new plan for? Kill and loot, and all this waiting 
be damned!” 

A babble of voices echoed him around the fire, 
cut off in a moment by the brilliant scarlet of 
Vastari’s leap, his red cloak streaming. There 
was a flash of glittering colors in one swift arc 
and a thud of weapon on flesh, all too quick for 
the eye or the brain to follow clearly. 

Then Vastari was standing over the huddled hill- 
man, the scarlet cloak settling in bright folds 
about him and his wickedly jewel-studded black- 
jack swinging ready for another blow. The hill- 
man nursed his smashed nose, blood running down 
beneath his hand to spatter upon apricot velvet. 

Vastari’s eyes glittered dangerously up at the 
rest under lowered brows as he stood above the 
silenced rebel, head sunk between his shoulders. 
The bloody blackjack swung in short, twitching 
arcs that caught the firelight in jeweled glints. 

“Has Ystri any friends here?” he demanded 
softly. No one spoke. Vastari bent and deliber- 
ately slapped Ystri’s face twice, heavy blows that 
rocked his head. The hillman was nearly twice 
Vastari’s size, but he made no move to retaliate, 
only crouched there masking his broken nose be- 
hind a bunched hand and glaring up with reluctant 
respect in his eyes. 

The same respect showed in every subdued face 
around the fire as Vastari turned away with a 
certain swagger, hooking the blackjack back in 
his belt, careless of the blood smear upon his satin 
tunic. 

“This isn’t the way to freedom,” Vastari said, 
reseating himself beside Quanna. “If we quarrel 
among ourselves, we’ll go the way so many went 
before us. We’re no guerrilla band, squabbling 
for loot! Freedom is worth a little sacrifice today 
if we can take all Venus tomorrow! It was not 
under slavery that Earthmen conquered their em- 



pire. They were free men, fighting for themselves. 
We must be free, too, if we can hope to conquer 
Venus. Free of Earth rule and free of all petty 
greeds among ourselves. We aren’t children, 
snatching at toys. We’re free-born leaders fight- 
ing to drive Earthmen off our soil and rule Venus 
under Venusian law.” 

The fire of the crusader kindled in Vastari’s 
voice as he went on. “If Ystri had his way, he’d 
attack Darva and die. The Earthmen have weapons 
we can’t hope to conquer. And even if we did — 
what would happen? Ystri and his kind would 
loot and run back to the mountains, each to his 
separate stronghold, each with all he could carry. 
And presently each would envy his neighbor’s 
loot, and in a little while you’d all be back where 
I found you, little nations too busy with your 
petty squabbles to unite against Earth rule or the 
raiders from Darkside or anything else that 
threatens you. Fools like Ystri made Earth 
tyranny possible on Venus. Fools like Ystri will 
bring it on us again if they ever return, unless I 
can unite us all. Union and freedom! Think of 
it, men!” 

Vastari stood up and began to pace the shining 
floor with long, nervous strides. The heads of 
his hearers turned to follow him as if hypnotized. 
His voice shook and glowed with his passionate 
sincerity, and the bright light of avarice kindled 
in the eyes that followed his pacing. 

“I tell you, it will be worth fighting for! We 
must be rid of the Earthman, but we mustn’t ruin 
ourselves to drive him out. There will be much 
to do after he’s gone — leaving his weapons behind 
him. We must have those weapons! We can’t 
conquer Venus without them. And that’s why 
Quanna must go back to Darva and learn more of 
their plans. Somehow, we must possess what the 
Earthmen now possess, if we intend to rule Venus 
as they did. That will take courage — cunning and 
courage. And after that — ” Vastari paused, look- 
ing up into the glittering shadows of the ceiling 
with eyes that saw something far away and won- 
derful. “After that — freedom and Venus will be 
ours! The Earthmen fought for freedom long 
ago — ^and won it and conquered the stars with it! 
Our turn is next. When the Earthmen were first 
fighting against tyranny they sang an old battle 
song whose words might be our own. Quanna 
learned it from her Earthman. I’d like you all 
to hear it. Quanna — ” 

She bent her smooth fair head becomingly and 
began in a low, clear voice to chant as well as she 
could in Venusian to the tune of a very old 
drinking song of Earth, once the battle anthem of 
a nation that had fallen long ago. The listening 
men sat silent, firelight glittering in their eyes. 
It was a curious scene ; surely the song had never 
been sung in a stranger setting than this crystal- 
I’ne ice cavern with its pale, sparkling shadows. 





14 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



to these wolfish men in their gorgeously colored 
robes. 

"Oh, thus be it ever when free men shall stand 
Between their loved homes and the tyrant’s oppression,” 

sang Quanna. Vastari’s fanatic young face lighted 
up at the words ; his lips moved soundlessly, 
mouthing them. 

“Then conquer we must. 

For our cause, it is just. 

And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust!’ 

And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave 
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!” 

Behind the group the gray Martian listened 
enigmatically, his leathery face sad. 

Jamie Douglas wakened to a room translucent 
with the blue twilight of the ebbing cloud-tide. 
His mind was clear and relaxed for a moment, as 
tranquil as the twilight in the room. Then mem- 
ory came back, and the familiar heaviness of spirit, 
and he sat up slowly, the crease deepening between 
his black brows. Quanna sat by the window where 
the breeze just lifted her fine, pale hair. When 
she heard him stir she turned, tranquillity in every 
gentle motion she made. 

“How well you slept,” she murmured, rising. “I 
couldn’t bear to wake you, Jamie, you were so 
soundly asleep. You must have been very tired, 
dear.” 

He leaned forward on the edge of the couch, 
forearms crossed on knees so his big shoulders 
hunched. He looked up at her under his brows 
rather as Vastari had looked up in the crystal 
cavern, but with all the difference in the world 
in his dark, weary face. 

“I had a dream,” he said somberly. “I thought 
I was back in Norristown, at the edge of the Twi- 
light Belt, and the mountaineers were attacking. 
I thought a spear went through me, right here — ” 
He laid a hand on his tunic just above the belt 
buckle. “It was so real it still hurt for a moment 
after I woke up. But in the dream it didn’t hurt 
at all. I thought it nailed me to the wall, and I 
pulled it out and — ” He laughed and hesitated. 
“Dreams are silly things. I thought I led a charge 
brandishing that bloody spear, and we drove the 
attackers back.” He laughed again, but looked 
up at her under the black brows with a dark and 
somber gaze, no laughter in his eyes. 

Quanna shivered a little under her blue-green 
gown. “Don’t look at me like that,” she said 
lightly. “It was only a dream. Wouldn’t you 
like some coffee, Jamie dear? You missed dinner, 
you know.” 

He ignored the question. “What was it you 
were playing before I fell asleep? ‘Otterburn,’ 



wasn’t it?” He hummed the tune, and words came 
back to his memory. 

"Ob, I have dreamed a dreary dream 
Beyond the Isle of Skye; 

I saw a dead man win a Bgbt, 

And I think that man was I — ” 

“The Isle of Skye,” he repeated after a long 
moment. “I wonder! The old Isle of Skye’s on 
Earth, but you and I are on a new one now, 
Quanna. From Earth, wouldn’t Venus be the 
Isle of Skye?” 

She shook her head, the fine hair clouding about 
her face. “I can’t picture it at all. Stars! Shall 
I ever see them, Jamie?” 

“Not from Venus. And Earth’s no safe place 
to be just now, my dear. No, you’re safer on your 
Isle of Skye. As for me — ” He shook his black 
head. “Now if I believed in dreams as my people 
used to do, I’d take that one for an omen.” He 
stood up. “Did you say something about coffee? 
Lord, how I must have slept!” 

Quanna’s smile as she rose had the clarity of 
uttermost innocence. When she opened the door 
the tall figure standing there with knuckles lifted 
to knock made her jump a little. 

“Lieutenant!” she laughed. “You startled me.” 
“Commander here?” Lieutenant Morgan, sec- 
ond in command at Darva Post, gave her an im- 
passive stare from sleepy, brown eyes. 

“Come in, Morgan,” called Jamie from the room 
beyond. “All right, Quanna. Run along and bring 
that coffee.” 

Morgan entered with the loose-jointed, decep- 
tive laziness that colored everything he did. 

“Don’t like that girl,” he said, looking at the 
closed door under his lids. 

Jamie laughed. “You don’t like any Venusian.” 
“Damn right I don’t. You’ll wake up with a 
knife in your ribs some day, commander.” 
Douglas said: “Not Quanna’s knife.” 

“Think not?” Morgan shrugged. “By the way, 
Vastari was up in the hills last night.” He 
glanced out of the window toward the great lean- 
ing cliffs above Darva, where the light was broad- 
ening as the morning cloud-tide thinned. A long 
rumble of rockslide shook the window frames as 
he spoke. 

“Attack?” asked Jamie. 

“No, just a powwow. They’re up to something, 
commander.” 

“Oh, I suppose so. They usually are. Any 
ideas?” 

“Two to one they know we’re leaving. That 
means ambush somewhere on the way out.” 
“Or attack here?” 

Morgan shook his head. “Too risky. Vastari’s 
no fool.” 

“Maybe not open attack. But they’ll hate to see 
us leaving with all our artillery. Vastari’d like 





THERE SHALL BE DARKNESS 



IS 



that for his campaigns in the mountains. He’ll 
try to get it, and he’ll try hard.” 

“Preferably by foul means,” put in Morgan with 
a grin. “He—” 

A gentle tap at the door interrupted him. 
Quanna looked in deprecatingly. 

“A caller, commander,” she said. “The Martian 
trader, Ghej — ” 

Jamie stood up quickly. “Ghej ! Come in, come 
in! It’s good to see you. Quanna, how about cof- 
fee for us all?” 

The cloaked gray figure came in with the odd 
little shuffle in his gait that is so typically Mar- 
tian. Jamie had a sudden Scots premonition that 
vanished in a moment and left him deriding him- 
self, but in that moment the gray-robed figure had 
looked like Death shuffling in to greet him, hold- 
ing out its hand. He remembered his dream, and 
the buried Celtic credulity of his forebears rose 
into the light just long enough for him to wonder 
if he were to leave Venus after all, if his longing 
to stay were to be granted more grimly than he 



had bargained for. The Isle of Skye, the morn- 
ing star — 

"I saw a dead man win a Sght, 

And I think that man was I—’’ 

“Superstitious fool!” he apostrophized himself 
half angrily, and held out his hand to Ghej. 

“I would not have liked to miss you, com- 
mander,” said the Martian in his precise English, 
accepting the chair Morgan pushed forward. “I 
hear you are leaving Venus soon.” 

Jamie threw up his hands in a gesture of de- 
spair. “Half Venus seems to have heard about it 
already.” 

Ghej’s pointed upper lip drew down in his beak- 
like smile. “I have been liquidating my assets 
for over a year now,” he told them, “preparing for 
this day.” The smile grew one-sided and twisted 
down a bit sadly at the corners. With his left 
hand he made the crook-sign of ancient Mars in 
the air. “Remember?” he asked. “It happened 
to Mars, too. I know about Rome and America 
and the other great fallen empires of Earth. I 




She bad saved him — and, knowing her people, he 
knew she had some purpose, some demand to make— 






16 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



could see this coming from a long way off. As 
you could see it, commander.” 

There was unconscious sadness in Jamie’s own 
smile. “Officially this is known as ‘temporary 
consolidation,’ ” he told the Martian. Ghej lifted 
deprecating brows and pulled the long upper lip 
down in a grimace. He was too polite to say what 
all three men in the room were thinking. 

This is the end of the Solar Empire of Earth. 
This is the last Patrol, out of all the strong net- 
work that once bound the worlds together by un- 
breakable chains of men. The links are loosening; 
the Empire is falling apart. Earth evacuates the 
planet it has ruled for three hundred years. The 
Green Star of Earth is an outworn emblem now. 
Barbarian hordes from the outer world are pouring 
down upon the Imperial Planet, armed with the 
weapons Earth taught them to make, that Earth 
might be destroyed. Little by little her grasp has 
let go. One by one the Patrols go home to defend 
the mother world. This is the last. 

“Venus will be a different world without you,” 
said Ghej, smoothing his cloak over one knee, 
“It will be interesting to see what happens to 
the Terrestrialized cities^ — all the clean, broad 
streets, the markets, the busy shops — how long 
will they last?” 

“Just as long as it takes Vastari to burn them,” 
Morgan declared bitterly. 

Ghej nodded, “Vastari probably justifies him- 
self in his own mind. They say he has reason to 
hate Earth, you know. He’ll want to destroy 
everything on Venus that has a Terrestrial back- 
ground.” 

“Three hundred years of Earth rule,” mused 
Jamie. “Three hours in the life of the race! 
Sometimes I wonder if twenty centuries would 
have been enough to make an impression on these 
people. Sometimes I wonder if everything we’ve 
done on Venus hasn’t been wholly in vain for both 
worlds. Six months after we’ve gone, the Terres- 
trialized cities will be gone, too. What the fire 
leaves the jungles will take over, Cementine huts 
will rise where cementine huts stood three hun- 
dred years ago, and there won’t be a trace left of 
anything Earthmen tried to do. No more cities 
where children can grow up in safety. No more 
protection for the farms that provide against 
starvation in famine seasons. Oh, damn Vastari !” 

“He can’t help being a Venusian,” said Ghej 
mildly. 

Jamie slapped his chair arms with impatient 
palms. “I know. It’s just that — ^well, I’ve been on 
Venus a long time now. I fought at the second 
siege of Norristown when I was twenty. I flew 
with Cressy when he explored the Twilight Belt, 
Here at Darva I’ve seen the city grow into some- 
thing to be proud of. I got the appropriations 
myself to build the storehouses that tided three 
whole tribes over the last famine season. When 



I think of Vastari wiping it all out the moment 
my back’s turned, I could strangle him with my 
bare hands!” 

“The Venusians are like quicksilver, com- 
mander,” Ghej said thoughtfully. “They slip 
away from contact with the logic of other worlds.” 

“I know. It’s because they’re still barbarians, 
isn’t it? Perhaps they’ll always be barbarians. 
They have no words in any of their languages 
for ‘loyalty’ or ‘honor’ or any of the high-sounding 
ideals we live by. They have no values above the 
selfish animal values of survival. They’re incapa- 
ble of civilized thoughts as we define civilization. 
I tell you, Venus is stagnant already, for all her 
rawness. There’s barbarism at both ends of the 
social scale, you know, and the men of Venus 
have gone from one barbarism to the other with 
no interval of true civilization between.” Jamie 
slapped the chair arms again. 

“Think of Norris, colonizing Venus. Can you 
imagine any Venusian enduring such hardships, 
simply for an ideal? Remember the first siege of 
Norristown? The colonists could have taken ships 
for home any time that year, and abandoned Venus 
and everything Norris and his men died to estab- 
lish. But they didn’t. They stuck it out until the 
rescue ships came, a whole year late. Did you 
ever read the story of that siege, Ghej? Unceas- 
ing attack from the swamps and the seas, unceas- 
ing fevers and disease from the unknown plagues 
of Venus. But the colonists had a greater fever 
than anything Venus could inflict — the feverish 
dream of empire that was sweeping the Solar Sys- 
tem then, 

“The soldiers died on the walls one by one, and 
the civilians took up the battle. When the space- 
ship came in at last with provisions, they found 
the women and children, the invalids and the 
wounded manning the guns, and not one able- 
bodied fighting man left on his feet. 

“That burning idealism has no roots in Venusian 
minds. And yet, you know, there’s something ir- 
resistibly fascinating about the planet and the 
people. It’s raw and lusty. It’s the future, Venus 
from Earth is the morning star, and I think that’s 
more than symbolism now.” 

Jamie got up and walked to the "window, look- 
ing out over the roofs of Darva toward the tre- 
mendous blue mountains where the cloud-tide 
thinned to let brightening daylight through. 

“Back on Earth I’ll be a misfit. An outlander. 
Earth is a world of orderly gardens and tamed 
seas and landscaped mountain ranges. The people 
are set in a pattern. You know to a syllable just 
how they’ll react to a given situation. It makes 
you yawn to think of it when you’ve spent twenty 
years on Venus under these gigantic mountains, 
where the people are as wild and unpredictable 
as the cloudbursts. 




THERE SHALL BE DARKNESS 



17 



“I’ve forgotten the polite formulas of Earth 
that cover every possible situation. They’ve got 
a tight little society there and I won’t fit into it 
an3nvhere.” 

Jamie was silent, and for a long moment no 
one spoke. Jamie’s mind went on: 

“Not that it matters how Earth accepts any of 
us colonials. I have an idea we’ve seen the last 
of our little play-paradises with their formal 
rules. They don’t tell us much here on Venus, but 
the last news I heard was of barbarian bases 
spotted through Earth like a plague, and barbarian 
invaders pouring down out of the sky in ships we 
taught them how to build, with weapons we put 
into their hands many years ago.” 

He couldn’t say that aloud, not even to Morgan. 
Certainly not to an outworld trader, however well 
he knew Ghej. He couldn’t say what had burned 
in his mind for so many months now, the terrible 
fear that had come to him and to the civilized 
world generations too late to save it. 

For the era of civilized man was ending. Jamie 
almost wished he hadn’t had the leisure to see it 
coming. He wished he hadn’t read the old books, 
for he could see the cycle closing as it had closed 
for other cultures long ago, 

“They say we’re ‘temporarily consolidating,’ ” 
he thought, staring out at the great cloud-marbled 
mountains. “I know better. I’ve got a perspective 
here they don’t have at home, or won’t admit hav- 
ing. I know the signs of rottenness, and the signs 
are plain on Earth. It’ll take a better race than 
modern man to win back what we’re letting go. 

“And there is no such race. The Venusians 
might have done it — ^but they won’t now. An- 
other few centuries and we might have instilled 
some conception of what idealism means into those 
slippery quicksilver minds. I don’t know. We’ll 
never do it now. And the Venusians were our last 
hope. 

“No other race remains. The barbarians who 
are conquering Earth are decadent barbarians. 
The other worlds of the empire are either old 
civilizations, more tired even than we, or sub- 
human tribes which no amount of teaching could 
lift much above apehood. 

“And so the greatest empire that mankind ever 
knew is crumbling from within, without a hope 
of rebirth.” 

The strong fragrance of coffee entering the 
room like a tangible presence broke the little si- 
lence that had fallen upon the three men. Quanna 
came in smiling, followed by servants with trays. 
Her deep, quiet eyes saw everything readable on 
the faces before her, though no eyes caught her 
looking. She poured the coffee deftly. 

When she handed Ghej his cup she set a small 
silver platter of bread at his elbow, according to 
the ceremonious Venusian custom, observed even 
among outworld people on Venus. There, as on 



Earth, bread symbolizes the staff of life, 
guests are served with it whenever food is served 
and whether they intend to taste it or not. 

Ghej’s horny-lidded eyes flickered at the pl i'e 
and then slanted a glance up at Quanna. ?l ,- 
caught it wonderingly. Something was afoot, 
then. Something concerning Jamie, for in the 
elaborate symbolism which governs all Venusian 
living, bread is the emblem for leader or head of 
the household. 

“I think you misunderstand Vastari, com- 
mander,” said Ghej, sipping his coffee. “It’s true 
that no Venusian seems to comprehend what other 
w'orlds call idealism. But, in his own mind, Vas- 
tari is probably quite sure of his rightness. He 
talks of freedom, you know.” 

“Freedom to loot and burn, and starve after- 
ward !” 

“Perhaps,” Ghej nodded, and began to toy with 
the silver knife that lay across the bread platter. 
“I think so. But then I represent the past, gentle- 
men. My world died millenniums ago. You your- 
selves are the present; your world is passing. 
Vastari is the future. What he does with it only 
the future can show. You and I will not be here 
to see.” He shook his crested head and picking up 
the knife, drove it idly halfway through the loaf 
of bread beside him. Under the horny lids he 
flickered a glance up at Quanna. 

“As a trader among the mountain tribes, com- 
mander,” he remarked irrelevantly, “it has been 
my business for many years to fathom Venusian 
mentalities as nearly as any outworlder can. I’ve 
seen a hillman, for instance, take revenge for a 
blow by striking not at his attacker but at his 
attacker’s enemy, in the dead of night. None but 
a Venusian could clearly understand the tangle 
of motives behind such a revenge — 

“Excellent coffee, my dear Quanna. May I have 
another cup?” 

In the blue twilight of Jamie’s bedroom noth- 
ing moved but the softly blowing curtains. Jamie’s 
regular, hoarse breathing was the only sound ex- 
cept for an occasional, far-away thunder of rock- 
slide and the receding footsteps of the sentry who 
paced outside the commander’s quarters. 

Jamie’s sleep was deep. Quanna had seen to 
that with the nightcap she had served him. Now 
she sat in the farthest corner of the room, where 
the shadows hung as blue as if in some submarine 
cavern, far down under Venusian seas. She sat 
in perfect stillness, unwinking eyes fixed upon 
the window beyond which the shadow and the 
footsteps of the sentry passed and repassed. 

She was grateful to Ghej. She was not sure how 
he could have guessed about her feeling for the 
commander, but she knew he had guessed. He 
was fit, almost, to be a Venusian in his sensitive 
perception of nuances. She knew, too, how it 




18 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



had amused him to tell her by symbolism and in- 
direction under the very noses of an oblivious 
audience that Ystri planned, to murder Jamie. 
Yes, Ghej had lived long enough on Venus to 
think almost like a Venusian himself. 

As she waited here in the twilight for the as- 
sassin she was not unduly perturbed. She knew 
enough of her race in general and Ystri in par- 
ticular to be sure he would come alone. He could 
not wholly trust any coplotter not to b^ray him 
to Vastari, and he would want the glory alone if 
he succeeded. 

The sentry’s feet gritted up and down on the 
pavement outside; Jamie’s heavy breathing meas- 
ured the silence in the room. Quanna sat unwink- 
ing and waited. 

She could not have said what warned her when 
the time came. Certainly no sound. But when 
the sentry’s tread approached the far end of his 
beat and a shadow slid up to the thin grille that 
masked the windows, Quanna was at the grille 
and crouching low against it before the shadow 
itself was aware of her. It must have been some- 
thing of a shock to the newcomer to find a second 
figure six inches away just inside the screen. The 
shadow started back with a muffled gasp, 

Quanna breathed, “Ystri — look!” and let the 
light from the gateway shine for an instant on 
the snub-nosed gun she held. 

“Quick!” whispered Ystri, speaking indistinctly 
because of his injured nose. “Let me in! The 
sentry — ” 

“No.” Quanna’s voice was flat. “I know what 
you want. Not tonight, Ystri.” 

“Let me in,” Ystri demanded fiercely, “or the 
commander will know tomorrow that you are a 
spy.” 

Quanna thought he meant that. His prestige had 
been severely damaged by Vastari’s blow; he might 
do anything to discredit her and Vastari through 
her. 

“Not tonight,” she temporized. “I have plans — 
Afterward, you may kill him.” 

“I don’t trust you!” 

“Tomorrow — ” 

“Traitress!” hissed Ystri. “Let me in! With 
him dead, there’ll be confusion enough to steal 
weapons, even take the town! In Vastari’s name, 
let me in !” 

“Not tonight! Tomorrow I’ll prove myself — 
kill him if you can, then. But not here.” 

“Where then? You’re lying.” 

“It’s the truth. Tomorrow I’ll bring him into 
a trap for you. The mangrove forest, say? At 
cloud-ebb tomorrow?” 

Ystri peered at her doubtfully in the blue dim- 
ness through the grille. The sentry’s returning 
feet grew louder on the pavement, but Ystri hesi- 
tated for one last mistrustful moment. 



“Is this the truth? Do you swear it by Vas- 
tari?” 

“I swear. I’ll bring him into the mangrove for- 
est tomorrow, to kill if you can,” 

Ystri scowled at her in the twilight, seeing a 
certain sincerity upon her face that made him 
accept the promise reluctantly. That, and the 
gun gleaming dully in reflected light. 

“Tomorrow at cloud-ebb, then — or you both die,” 
he growled, and his shadow melted from the grille 
without a sound. Quanna sat back on her heels 
and looked after him, her eyes deep and expres- 
sionless. 

“The mangrove forest?” Jamie’s voice was 
doubtful, but he turned his horse toward the up- 
ward path. “That gloomy place? Sure you want 
to ride that way?” 

Quanna smiled at him under her hood of emer- 
ald velvet. “You said I could choose — and it’s our 
last ride together on Venus, Jamie dear.” 

“Oh, all right. I always get my feet wet there, 
but — have it your way.” 

“I think it’s a lovely place, Jamie. Listen, 
Jamie, I’ll sing to you — a going-away song.” 

The Martian monochord harp hung at her sad- 
dle. She laid it across her green velvet knee and 
began a soft Venusian chant with a ringing call 
at the end of each stanza. Partly it was to amuse 
Jamie, partly to warn the hiding Ystri of their 
coming. It would amuse Ystri, too, in a grim sort 
of way, for this was a going-away song indeed, a 
Venusian dirge for a man about to die. 

The mangrove forest lay high in a narrow 
canyon above Darva. Jamie and Quanna had rid- 
den here more than once before, for the pleasure 
of walking the narrow mossy ways that wound 
over the water. The forest filled a valley between 
peaks veined with waterfalls whose music tinkled 
all around the canyon. It was half swamp, half 
lake of clear dark water out of which gigantic 
mangroves rose in arches and columns and long 
green aisles. The labyrinthine paths wound in- 
tricately over the great gnarled roots which stood 
above the water. 

The glassy surfaces gave back such faithful re- 
flections that the forest seemed double, suspended 
in green space. It was like walking in a dream 
to stroll along the winding, mossy ways and watch 
one’s own reflection swimming dimly underfoot. 
Not even the padding Venusian horses could 
walk these paths. Jamie and Quanna dismounted 
at the mouth of the canyon and entered the glassy 
forest in silence except for the music Quanna 
stroked now and again from her harp. She was 
watching for Ystri. He would not be easy to see, 
she knew. It was not for nothing that she had 
worn her green cloak today, and he was certain 
to be green-clad, too, and almost invisible in the 
bewildering reaches of the forest. 





THERE SHALL BE DARKNESS 



19 



They had strolled a long way into the mirrory 
labyrinth before a sliding motion among the trees 
caught Quanna’s eye. She had been sure he would 
come alone, and she could see now that she had 
not been mistaken. She had been sure, too, that 
he would not use a gun. He wanted Jamie dead 
for many reasons. The chiefest was to forestall 
Vastari of the glory of that murder, and Ystri 
would want to use the long Venusian dagger for 
that pleasure. And so he would have to creep 
close enough to stab Jamie in the back, and there 
was no danger of a random shot across the water. 

But Ystri was wary. Jamie had an evil reputa- 
tion among the outlaws and Ystri was not one to 
risk having this particular quarry turn to face 
him before his blow drove home. Quanna had to 
lead the way deeper and deeper into the forest, 
where the great mangrove roots made paths broad 
enough so that no reflections showed in the water, 
before the green moving shadow that was Ystri 
drew near. 

If Quanna’s heart was beating harder under her 
emerald robe, no hint of it showed in her face 
when she decided the time was near to do what 
must be done. 

“I’ve a surprise for you, Jamie dear,” she said, 
pausing to face him under a great vaulting arch 
of green. “Will you wait for me a moment here? 
I’ll be back in five minutes.” And then, because 
the danger was near and great just then, she tip- 
toed and took his dark face between her hands and 
kissed him quickly on the mouth. 

Venusians are not demonstrative people. Jamie 
stared after her as she turned swiftly away, the 
green robe swirling. Her long, dark look and the 
unexpected kiss had carried an air of foreboding 
that made him loosen the gun in his belt and 
watch the forest around him with vague uneasi- 
ness, for no tangible reason. And that result, per- 
haps, Quanna had foreseen, too, when she kissed 
him. There are double motives behind most of 
the things Venusians do. 

Quanna went swiftly, on soundless feet, along 
a pathway that twisted out of sight. Her green 
reflection went with her in the water, smooth and 
stealthy. She was making a circle as directly as 
possible in these winding ways, and in a few mo- 
ments she saw ahead of her another green and 
stealthy figure moving forward from tree to tree. 
Quanna smiled. 

Jamie had lighted a cigarette. In the glassy 
stillness the click of his lighter was audible from 
far away, and the pungency of the smoke spread 
through the heavy fragrances of the water jungle. 
She could see his dark head down an aisle of 
greenness; he had set his back to a tree and was 
smoking desultorily, flicking ashes into the water 
and watching the spreading circles that they made. 

Ahead of her the green shadow of Ystri slipped 

AST— 2B 



forward with a sudden rush, quick and deadly. A 
knife caught the light and glinted. 

Quanna covered the distance at a soft-footed 
run which the moss hushed. Her green cloak un- 
folded like a hover of wings behind her and the 
flash from beneath it rose an instant before the 
glimmer of steel in Ystri’s fist rose. 

There is no sound quite like the solid thud of 
a dagger driven hilt-deep into flesh, hard, with a 
full-armed swing. Jamie knew it from all other 
sounds and had spun with his gun in his hand 
before Ystri himself knew quite what had hap- 
pened to him. Ystri must at first have felt only 
the heaviness of the blow which even from behind 
was hard enough to knock the breath from his 
lungs. He gasped once for air, and whirled to 
face Quanna, open-mouthed. 

His face contorted with fury when he realized 
what had happened and his second gasp was for 
the breath to betray her, but she had struck deftly 
and a gush of bright blood, startlingly bright, 
smothered the words on his lips. 

There was no need for explanations. Jamie 
bolstered his gun slowly, seeing that he would not 
need it. Quanna’s expressionless eyes watched 
Ystri fall, the glare of fury in his eyes to the last 
as he mouthed futilely against the torrent of blood 
frothing over the apricot velvet tunic which his 
green robe fell back to reveal. There were old 
bloodstains there, too. It was the same tunic he 
had worn in the cavern. She thought briefly that 
the blood-letting which her brother had begun two 
days ago the sister had finished here. 

Jamie was staring at her questioningly over the 
body. It lay with one arm dragging in the water ; 
Quanna put out her foot and rolled it over with- 
out emotion. It slid into the water with scarcely 
a splash and the mirrory surface closed over the 
brilliant colors of apricot and green, bright fresh 
scarlet and the brown of old blood. Above the 
spreading circles Quanna looked up to Jamie and 
smiled. 

“I have saved your life, Jamie,” she said. 

He bit his lip. Lives are not saved gratuitously 
on Venus. It is a matter of investment, done 
deliberately with a specific price in mind, and 
among Venusians if the price is refused the life 
is forfeit, then and there or at any time thereafter, 
without penalty of a blood-feud from the victim’s 
relatives. This relentless code is as near, perhaps, 
as Venusians come to maintaining an abstract ideal 
about anything at all. 

“I suppose there’s no use asking what’s behind 
all this,” said Jamie, nodding at the water which 
had closed over Ystri’s body. 

Quanna lifted a brow. “Oh, that. I saw him — 
I had a favor to ask of you. Is there a better way 
to buy it than this?” 

He knew he would never be told any more of 




20 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



the story than that. No use asking. He lifted his 
shoulders resignedly. 

“You saved my life,” he acknowledged. “What 
to you want?” 

“To go back to Earth with you,” she told him 
promptly. “You’ll take me, Jamie?” 

He squinted a curious glance at her. She might 
have asked for money, weapons, anything but an 
intangible like this. An intangible he could not 
give her. 

“Quanna,” he said gently, “don’t you think I’d 
take you if I could?” 

“You are commander. What can stop you?” 
“Look, dear.” He stepped forward over the 
bloodstains on the moss and laid his hands on 
her shoulders, “Earth’s a ... an armed camp. 
No one’s safe there now. You never saw cities 
bombed — you can’t imagine the life you’d have 
to lead if you came back with me.” 

“I’m not a child, Jamie.” She lifted unfathoma- 
ble dark eyes to his. 

“I know — I know.” He tried helplessly to make 
her understand. “But I’m not going home for 
pleasure, Quanna. I’m going to fight. I think 
we’ll have to go on fighting there as long as . . . 
as long as we can. If I took you along, you’d be 
in constant danger. There’d be forced march after 
forced march, front-line duty — life under siege at 
the very best. And at worst — without me, what 
would become of you?” 

“I’m willing to risk all that, Jamie dear.” 

He let his hands fall. “I can’t, Quanna. Even 
if I could let }mu risk it, I’m not free to handicap 
myself with a woman. I’m going home to fight, 
my dear. Don’t you understand? Earth is calling 
us back because of desperate need. I’m a soldier 
of the Imperial Planet — I have no right to divide 
my efficiency in half because I’ve a woman to look 
out for everywhere I go — ” 

“But why must you go at all, Jamie?” She said 
it very gently. “What can one man mean among 
so many? Why not stay here on Venus, with me?” 
His black brows met above the crooked nose. 
“If I could make you understand that, my dear,” 
he said wryly, “I wouldn’t half so much mind 
going.” 

And so it went on, for a long while. To Quanna 
the words that Jamie used were often as meaning- 
less as the motives behind them. She wondered 
afterward that she had not used the dagger which 
tradition gave her the right to use, upon this dark 
and stubborn Terrestrial who was so intent upon 
destroying her happiness and his own. 

Long and hotly they debated, standing over the 
bloodstain on the moss with the forest glassily 
quivering all around, them. When they turned 
home at last along the reflecting pathways, Quanna 
went submissively, her hooded head bent at the 
angle suitable to a Venusian woman in the pres- 
ence of her lord, but she had not surrendered. 



She would have to change her plan ; that was all. 
If he would not take her of his free will, then 
she would force him to it. She would find some 
lever stronger than the one which had just failed 
her. For he knew and she knew that she would 
not take the life she had saved. She had not killed 
Ystri for that. 

Yes, she would find a lever, and she would have 
no mercy in her use of it, for it would take some 
intolerable force indeed, to swerve Jamie from 
his course. 

When the blue twilight was deepest over Darva 
and the Terrestrialized city slept, Quanna went 
up the winding stair which led to the roof of the 
commander’s quarters. It was the dark of the 
cloud-flow, but she carried no light. Artificial 
lighting is rare on Venus, which never knows true 
darkness on Dayside. Quanna moved unerringly 
through the blue gloom upon the roof. 

She carried a sheaf of slender, hollow rods un- 
der her arm, and in one hand a basket of decaying 
flowers. The heavy, noxiously sweet fragrance of 
their dissolution is irresistible to several species 
of Venus’ flying creatures, most of them poisonous. 

Quanna jointed her hollow rods together until 
she had a long, slender pole, about whose upper 
end she twined garlands of the heavy-smelling, 
rotting blossoms, working deftly in the near- 
darkness. Darva was hushed below her. From 
the mountains behind her to the mountains before 
blew the fragrances of jungle canyons; and the 
rumble of rock-slides thundered from far away. 

Darva was built like a medieval fortress, a 
walled plateau guarded by crenelated mural tow- 
ers at regular intervals all around the city. The 
commander’s quarters were built into the upper 
end of the wall, one with it, so that the roof upon 
which Quanna stood looked down sheerly over 
wall and plateau edge, toward the tremendous blue 
mountains beyond the river. She had taken re- 
fuge in a battlement and was waving her long, 
flower-twined pole in slow circles. 

In an incredibly short time a whir of wings 
sounded in the deep, blue twilight and a night- 
flying shape swept out of the dimness toward the 
pole. Quanna braced herself against the battle- 
ment and continued to fish the air streams blow- 
ing toward the cliffs. More wings — more swoop- 
ing, dim shapes out of the twilight as the cruising 
nocturnal creatures of the mountains began to 
catch that intoxicating odor on the wind. Pres- 
ently she was the center of a whirling, dipping 
swarm of silent things, all making circles around 
the decayed flowers like moths around a light, all 
in the uttermost silence except for the beat of 
wings. 

When she saw what she wanted, she lowered the 
pole until the flowery tip was within reach, and 
she put out an intrepid hand into the midst of 




THERE SHALL BE DARKNESS 



21 



' » " " ' 

the hovering creatures and seized a dark, winged 
horror by the neck. It beat at her furiously with 
scaled pinions a yard long, and its thick, muscular, 
serpent body lashed at her face. Composedly — 
she had handled the winged snakes since child- 
hood — she put down the pole and went deftly to 
work over the threshing thing whose great blue- 
scaled wings winnowed the air. The blue, reptilian 
body wound and rewound about her forearms and 
venomous hissing punctuated the wing beats. 
Quanna paid no attention. Deadly poison though 
the winged snakes are, they can be safely handled 
by those who know how. This one bof-e a small, 
pale brand on its flat head as token that it had 
been handled before. 

When Quanna tossed it into the air a moment 
later it shook outraged wings, dived at her once 
or twice with fierce hissings, and then hurled itself 
once more into the group still circling about the 
rotted blossoms on the pole. 

Quanna went forward confidently, hesitated a 
moment, then reached out to seize another of the 
circling things out of the flutter and confusion 
around the flowers. This one she stroked with 
long, rl^ythmic motions until its scaled and writh- 
ing body quieted in hypnotized inertia and the 
great wings folded into stillness. She wrapped a 
scarf around them and then went forward to beat 
off the rest of the swarm and cover the flowers 
with her cloak. 

In a few minutes, when the sick-sweet fragrance 
had dissipated upon the air, the noxious flying 
coven of poison things began to disband, great, 
dark shapes sailing and swooping out in widening 
circles until the blueness of the twilight swal- 
lowed them. Quanna smoothed her disheveled 
hair and began to dismantle her fishing rod. 

She knew that when light began to broaden 
again over the mountains the branded flying snake 
she had released would return to its home in the 
cliff above the hidden fortress where she had been 
born. It would not be long before Vastari had the 
message she had bound beneath its blue-scaled 
wing. 

And then — if Vastari trusted her enough — a 
certain species of hell would be unleashed upon 
the citadel which Jamie Douglas still held for 
Imperial Earth. 

When the alarm sirens exploded into sudden, 
brazen wailing over Darva one twilight two days 
later, Quanna knew that Vastari still trusted her. 
She stood by Jamie’s mirror, watching him buckle 
on the cuirass without which no one dared walk 
the battlements when Venusian spearmen were 
below, and her dark gaze was somber. 

Jamie, ducking into the breast-armor, was as 
excited as she could remember seeing him. A 
Venusian attack was always exciting ; the rippling 
drums and the shrill, high keening of the seven- 



toned pipes get into the listeners’ blood and 
quicken the heartbeats in time with that wild, 
tuneless rhythm. Venusians do not shout in bat- 
tle. The pipes and drums are the only sounds of 
attack, clear, inhuman music as if not men but 
something wild and rhythmic were attacking the 
city. 

“Damned fools,” declared Jamie, struggling 
with the straps of his cuirass. “Here, help me, 
Quanna, Attacking with spears and slings — must 
be something behind this. Recognize any of ’em, 
Quanna? Is Vastari there? Lord, I’d like to see 
him over a Knute before I go!” 

Her eyes veiled. “You hate him, Jamie?” 

“Hate?” He paused to look at her, smiling a 
little grimly, “Well, hardly that. He’s a symbol, 
Quanna — a symbol of barbarism. If I could see 
him dead before I go, I’d be sure of one enemy less 
against Venusian civilization. Him and his bab- 
ble about freedom!” Jamie snorted. “There might 
be safety a little longer for the people we leave 
behind if Vastari should die this evening. Well — ” 
He shrugged and swung away. Quanna followed 
him smoothly, her satin skirts whispering along 
the floor as she walked. 

They stepped out into the cool evening light, 
into a subdued, hushed murmur of activity. Ex- 
cept for the shrill, inhuman rhythm of the music 
outside, even battle, on Venus, was — hushed. And 
the music was dying now as the attackers went 
grimly into action. 

Lieutenant Morgan was waiting by the Armory 
door, a file of armed Earthmen with him. The 
great, solid block of the Armory, and the lower 
walls of Darva, were the work of Earthmen’s hands 
only and their secrets known only to Terrestrials. 
The Armory — heart and brain of Earth domina- 
tion — ^was unlocked only in the presence of the 
commanding officer, and it was not unlocked with 
keys. There was no chance that Venusians might 
gain access to this vital ganglion of defense, or 
Quanna would not have resorted to this last dan- 
gerous expedient of inviting attack that the Ar- 
mory be opened to her. 

There was no hope even of tricking the guarded 
combination of the door out of the few officers 
who knew it, for strictly speaking, it was unknown 
even to them. The elaborate precautions that 
guarded that secret were eloquent of its im- 
portance. It had been implanted in the subcon- 
scious minds of a very few Terrestrials while un- 
der the influence of neo-curare. 

Morgan had just finished making a hypodermic 
injection into the arm of one of his men as 
Quanna and Jamie came up. Neo-curare, dulling 
the conscious mind, releasing the subconscious — 

“Ready?” asked Jamie crisply. 

Morgan glanced at his watch, “Ready, sir.” He 
slid aside a tiny panel in the door, uncovering a 
dial. The hands of the drugged soldier hid it; 



22 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 




his dulled eyes did not change, but his fingers 
began to move as Morgan said: “Armory com- 
bination.” This was the effective lock that 
guarded Earth weapons, the lock for which no key 
could be stolen. 

Even if Vastari could have kidnaped one of the 
key men, neither he nor any Venusian knew the 
ingredients of the drug or the proper dosage to 
administer. Yes — an effective lock. But not 
wholly proof against traitors, Quanna told herself 
as she watched the weapons being brought out 
with rapid efficiency. 

One of the Knute vibrators was being taken out 
of the Armory now. It looked like a thick, closed 
umbrella. The crew of four — ^three to operate, 
one to aim — handled the yard-long device with 
the carelessness born of long practice. Quanna 
had watched that practice more than once, from 
hiding places that only Venusians knew. 

The Knute vibrator was a device attuned to the 
delicate vibrations of the brain, a wave-thrower 



that could disrupt the molecules of the mind, caus- 
ing a mental explosion that resulted in death, 
Quanna had learned the simple devices that oper- 
ated it during her first weeks in Darva. More 
important, she had learned of the safety device, 
the vitally significant Gilson inert fuse. Eaves- 
dropping in the violet twilight one evening she 
had heard Lieutenant Morgan excoriate a crew 
for testing the vibrator with the inert fuse in 
place. 

“It’s the difference between bullets and blanks,” 
his angry voice had floated up to her out of the 
practice yard, “Once you put the Gilson in, you’ve 
got dynamite in your hands.” There had been 
much more, and Quanna remembered it faithfully. 

Without the inert fuse, the Knute vibrator was 
not deadly. It threw off a vibration that had the 
same effect as inaudible sound, causing reasonless 
confusion and terror in its victims. Dangerous 
wild beasts could be driven off by its use, or killed 
with the Gilson inert fuse in place. 




THERE SHALL BE DARKNESS 



23 



Quanna followed the crew that carried a Knute 
to the wall. They wore the usual outfit of wall 
defenders, metal cuirasses, helmets, face masks 
with heavily glassed goggles swinging at their 
belts. 

“There is dust on your lenses, men,” she said, 
pointing to the nearest mask. 

The soldiers grinned down at her, a little flat- 
tered by the notice that she usually reserved en- 
tirely for the commander. Quanna reached for a 
mask and polished the eyepieces with a corner 
of the rainbow scarf that veiled her hair. 

“You may need to see clearly soon,” she told 
them with a serene upward, glance. “Let me have 
your mask, soldier. . . . Thank you.” 

Afterward she fell back and watched the men 
move up to the battlemented tower top and un- 
fold the vibrator. She was not smiling; it had 
been easy enough, but she did not feel like smiling 
this evening. The masks were well rubbed now 
with a secretion from certain spiderlike insects 
of the high mountains. Like some Terrestrial 
creatures, the arachnid paralyzes its victims so 
that its larvae can feed at leisure. It is the fumes 
that paralyze, and they would work swiftly after 
the men had donned their masks and body-heat 
released the poison for the mucous eye membrane 
to absorb. 

After that, paralysis, instant and effective. But 
paralysis of the body, not the brain. Because of 
that, Quanna knew that her hours in Darva -were 
numbered. 

She paused for a moment in the door of the 
commander’s quarters to look back over Darva, 
which she might never see again. The walled city 
was in a hum of ordered activity as guns were 
rushed to the walls and defenders to positions in 
the mural towers. And always, she saw, it was 
Terrestrials who did the ordering, Venusians who 
scurried obediently into place. She could picture 
what Darva would look like in the first attack 
after the Earthmen left. Terror, confusion, in- 
efficiency. She was not sure even in her own mind 
if she were glad for Vastari’s sake or sorry for 
Jamie’s that this should be so. 

But there was no time now for loitering. She 
went in swiftly, moving on silent feet through the 
hurried confusion of indoors. There was a certain 
tapestry-hung angle of a hallway in which she 
paused while two servants hurried downstairs; 
then her fingers were flattening against the smooth 
surface behind the tapestry and a panel slid open 
without a sound. The Earthmen might suspect, 
but they could not know of the hidden passages 
which Venusian masons had built into Darva. 

She went upward in darkness, even her cat- 
vision almost blind here. Halfway up she paused 
to find a long, scarf-wrapped bundle in a cubby- 
hole. The bundle squirmed faintly, giving off the 
musk scent of all night-flying things on Venus, 



where no definite evolutionary cleavage has ever 
been made between reptile and bird. 

At the head of the dark stairs she found another 
panel, and a little slit of light widened in the wall. 
Blue twilight poured through, and the vague 
sounds of Venusian battle. She could hear the 
heart-quickening beat of the tripping drums be- 
low, the keening of the seven-toned pipes where 
Vastari’s men were making a desperate effort to 
scale the walls before the Earthmen’s invincible 
weapons could be turned upon them. 

Quanna looked out on the turret where the 
Knute vibrator was being set up. From here it 
could rake the base of the walls with crossfire. 
The crew had not yet donned their masks, she 
saw. They were unfolding the umbrellalike 
weapon, till on a high tripod of meshed wires 
stood a conical torpedo of glass, mounted on a 
universal joint. From equidistant points at the 
base of the tripod wires led out to control boxes, 
each with a red push button. 

“The Gilson,” said one of the men, and was 
handed the inert fuse, a short, pencillike rod. 
Quanna watched him slip it into place. “Power.” 

A red button was pushed. The mesh base of the 
Knute began to quiver — ^but only one section of 
it. Slowly the wavelike motion spread out, till 
the whole section was shimmering like a veil. 

“Now!” 

The next man pushed his button. The shimmer 
crawled on to his section. Then the third — 

Quanna noticed that whenever one of the panels 
slowed in its rippling dance, the guardian of that 
section pressed his button again, replenishing the 
power. The three men bent over their tasks. The 
fourth handled the aiming of the projector. 

It was not difficult. Quanna could not see its 
effect from her position, but she read the faces 
of the men, and heard the shouts of Venusians 
from below the tower. A spear clattered against 
the battlement. 

“Masks,” one of the men said, and slipped his 
into place. The others obeyed. Quanna hugged 
the vaguely squirming bundle under her arm and 
waited tensely. 

She did not have a long wait. At the end of 
it she stepped out onto the tower top, walking 
delicately among the inert but conscious men, 
lying awkwardly in the attitudes in which they 
had fallen, unable to stir or speak. They watched 
her with wide, glassy eyes. 

She waited for the vibrations of the Knute to 
subside. The arms folded up into place easily 
enough and the device was not heavy to lift. As 
serenely as if the shocked and horrified men were 
not watching, she unwrapped her scarf from the 
great, scaled wings and serpent body of the flying 
creature she had captured several twilights ago. 
A harness was already buckled around it; she 
fastened the Knute into place as quickly as she 



24 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



could, for by now the silencing of this tower’s de- 
fense must already have been noticed. 

She tossed the freed serpent thing into the air. 
It hissed furiously and beat its broad, iridescent 
wings against the weight of the thing lashed to it. 
It would not fly far with that drag upon it, but 
there was no need of gaining distance now. Heed- 
less of arrows, she leaned over the parapet to 
watch what happened. 

Shouts rang out from below and from the wall 
defenders. Both sides had seen it now. Quanna 
held her breath. The flying snake was stronger 
than she had thought. It was carrying its burden 
out over the heads of the attackers, sinking slowly, 
but forging grimly ahead. Now it was clear of 
the last tower — and it was fluttering, confused 
falling. Another Knute had been focused upon 
it, she realized. 

It dropped. A rush of Venusians, heedless of 
danger from above, closed over the threshing, scaly 
wings, hiding them from view. The pipes sud- 
denly shrilled high and triumphantly. Quanna let 
her breath out in a long sigh. 

Then Jamie’s voice, clear and resonant, shouted: 
“They’ve got a Knute! Open the gates — ” 

She flattened herself to the wall, straining to 
see the little troop of Earthmen charging outward 
in a wedge toward the precious weapon. Quanna 
heard footsteps hurrying up the stairway toward 
her, but she did not move. Would Vastari obey? 
With this chance of killing Jamie — would he re- 
member the surer plan and escape with the deadly 
vibrator? 

No — not deadly. But Vastari would not know 
that. He would not guess the purpose of the Gil- 
son inert fuse, or that Quanna had removed the 
little tube and hidden it. But as for Jamie — fight- 
ing forward toward the Knute — 

A swarm of Venusians closed in between the 
Terrestrial wedge and the vibrator. She could not 
see clearly what was happening, and the footsteps 
were very close behind her now. She gave one 
last, despairing glance over the parapet and 
whirled toward her panel, ’The paralyzed Earth- 
men watched her go. 

She was leaving few secrets behind her, she re- 
flected as she hurried down the dark steps inside. 
When the gun crew recovered — But this had 
been the only way. And she must remain hidden 
now in some other of the secret places in the walls 
until she could escape after the gates were opened. 
It was a risky thing to trust Vastari with the 
weapon, but not even in peace time could she have 
walked out of Darva carrying a Knute; nor, of 
course, could she have captured the weapon ex- 
cept in the confusion and emergency of attack. 

And this was only the beginning of the elaborate 
and cruel plan she had laid against Jamie. She 
should be thinking of that now, but she was not. 



She was seeing the battlefield as she had last 
glimpsed it, Jamie’s bare, dark head forging for- 
ward among the attackers, and the pipes shrilling 
triumph. Briefly she remembered Jamie’s ominous 
dream. 

The rumble of a far-away landslide made slow 
thunder through the streets of Darva as Jamie 
stood in the door of his quarters, drawing on his 
gloves and watching the last Terrestrials upon 
Venus form into marching order down the street. 
He did not look up at the high blue mountains or 
out over the familiar roofs and terraces below. 
He would remember Darva, he knew, with an 
aching sort of memory that would last as long as 
he did. But he was not letting himself think at 
all. He was glad of Ghej beside him, to keep his 
mind turned outward. 

“Sure you won’t join us?” he asked for the last 
time, and again received the beaky smile and the 
headshake with which the old Martian had an- 
swered that question before. 

“No, I’ll stay. The Solar System isn’t too good 
a place to live in these days, but I think Venus 
will be the least turbulent in our liftime. It’s the 
last refuge from the barbarians, anyhow. I don’t 
expect them on Venus yet awhile, perhaps not 
during my life span — but they’ll come, commander. 
They’ll come.” He pressed his lips together and 
squinted under his triangular, horny lids as if into 
a future he did not like at all. After a moment 
he shrugged. “No, I’ll stay. I’m adjusted here 
well enough.” He touched the small gun that 
showed at his belt when the gray robe swung back. 
“They respect me here.” 

Jamie smiled. He knew the old Martian was 
unexpectedly swift and accurate with that small 
weapon. 

“You’ll get along,” he acknowledged, and then 
hesitated over a question he had to ask and 
dreaded. “Do you . . . have you — About Quanna, 
I mean — ” 

Ghej nodded. “Once I’ve seen her. In Vastari’s 
camp. She’s very unhappy, commander Venusians 
seldom show emotion, but I know. I think you 
haven’t seen the last of Quanna.” 

Jamie’s black brows met. “Lord, I hope I have! 
Though even now, I can’t quite believe she’d — ’* 
He let the sentence die. “I wish I could get my 
hands on Vastari before I leave!” 

“Other leaders would rise in his place,” Ghej 
shrugged. “What Venus really needs is — oh some 
common trouble to draw them all together. Here 
at the end, it just occurs to me that if the Ter- 
restrials had really oppressed Venusians, it might 
have been the salvation of the race.” He smiled 
dryly. “Too late now.” 

A horn sounded in the street below them. It 
was time to^o. 

The calm-faced Home Guard watched them 





THERE SHALL BE DARKNESS 



25 



marching away. There was a wild, curiously sad 
tempo to the music of the seven-toned pipes which 
played them out of Darva. Jamie saw the first 
shadow of decay even before they reached the 
gate. For the Home Guard, today, was not the 
fine line of soldiers he had reviewed last week. 
Nothing blatant, of course — just a tunic loosened 
at the throat, a helmet askew here, an unpolished 
buckle there, boots with dust on the toes — He 
looked away. 

Another distant rockslide shook its low thunder 
through the air as they reached the gate. Jamie 
thought fancifully that the familiar, slow rumble 
was like the sound of the crumbling Solar Empire 
which was letting go its last world colony today. 
Behind them the wild, sad skirl of piping died 
away. Before them the road wound up through 
foothills toward the pass. And so the last legion 
rode out of Darva, not looking back. 

Jamie thought they would all hear that skirling 
music until they died, and the long, low rumble of 
sliding rocks above peaceful Darva, and see the 
high blue mountains whenever they closed their 
eyes. These last Terrestrials had been a long time 
on Venus now. 

There was decadence even in the marching of 
the Earthmen out of Darva, for a spaceport had 
once kept the city in touch with the outside 
worlds. It closed a year ago, when they moved 
the Seventeenth over nearer Darkside and the cost 
of the port became prohibitive. And so the last 
Terrestrial Patrol left Venus afoot, its officers 
mounted on padding horses, by a slow trade trail 
through the mountains over which Earth’s ships 
had once glided on sleek wings. 

Civilization had overreached itself in so many 
ways,- thought Jamie. When the planes began to 
fail for lack of material from home, they had 
realized one serious gap, too late to bridge now. 
They had never needed surface transportation 
when the air was theirs, and now that the ships 
had failed — well, they tramped the roads as if 
their race had never mastered the drive of wheels. 

Jamie was thinking inevitably of Quanna as 
they mounted the steep trail. He knew that one 
stolen Knute would not be enough to satisfy Vas- 
tari ; there would be ambush somewhere along the 
way to the spaceport. He had come to personify 
in Vastari now all the qualities about Venus that 
irritated him most, and Quanna’s shocking defec- 
tion — he could scarcely believe even now that she 
had done what she had done — he, somehow, blamed 
Vastari, too, with the unreason of the subcon- 
scious. There was much he could not understand 
even yet; he was not sure he hoped more to see 
her or not to see her again before they left Venus. 

The sheer, turquoise heights of the mountains 
were leaning above them now. They could look 
down, as they marched, over cloud-veiled distances 



at Darva showing and vanishing and showing 
again through gaps, each time farther away, 
smaller, more like a memory that recedes as time 
goes on. 

Bright reptiles squirmed from their path, scaled, 
flying things swept more noiselessly than owls 
from their high nests as the Earthmen passed. 
The sound of falling water was all around them, 
and the low, shaking thunder of distant land- 
slides. 

It was a long journey over the mountain route 
toward the port. Somewhere along the way, Vas- 
tari must certainly strike in a last, desperate effort 
to take their weapons for himself. But, in spite 
of the difficulty and danger of the journey, Jamie 
thought none of them was wholly sorry that it was 
long. They were, for the last few days of their 
lives, alone in a high, blue world of turquoise rock 
beneath the slow surge of the cloud-tide, and all 
of them knew they were spending their last days 
on a world they loved and would not see again. 

For none of them had any illusions about the 
world they were returning to. The barbarians of 
the outer worlds were, thought Jamie ruefully, 
the last plague that Earthmen would have to suf- 
fer, a latter-day Black Death which neither Earth 
civilization nor Earthmen would survive. 

Suspense tightened as they drew nearer and 
nearer the end of their journey, and still Vastari 
had not struck. Jamie had fantastic dreams in 
which he thought Quanna had killed her brother 
to save the Earthmen, but his rational mind knew 
better. That she had had more than one motive 
in stealing the Knute he was sure, but he did not 
expect to feel pleasure when he learned what it 
was. 

Darva was far behind. Each day that passed 
drove it farther and farther into memory. They 
all gave themselves up to the timeless present, 
knowing that each succeeding moment of peace 
might be the last. And still Vastari delayed. 

There is a valley in the peaks a few hours this 
side of Port City. Countless tortuous ravines 
run up from its floor through the steep cliffs 
around. Earthmen did a little mining there in 
the old days, but nothing remains today except 
the great scars upon the cliff faces and the long, 
dark blasts the rocketships left — ^marks upon 
Venus that will far outlast the race that made 
them. 

It was so obvious a place for ambush that Jamie 
had been fairly sure Vastari would not use it. 
That was probably one of the devious reasons be- 
hind the fact that he did. 

Jamie, riding at the head of the column, eyed 
the labyrinth of ravines around him with wary 
eyes as they entered the valley. The ravines 
looked curiously confusing. There was a shimmer 
over the whole valley that reminded him suddenly 
of Mars. If he had not known himself on Venus, 





26 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



he would have thought that heat waves were danc- 
ing between the honeycombed walls of the valley. 

Then the shimmer began to spread, and a violet 
blindness closed softly across Jamie’s eyes; the 
sound of falling water from the peaks faded into 
a ringing silence, and the valley was full of terror 
and confusion. Little mindless horrors chased 
one another like ripples across his consciousness. 

This was it. Even knowing that, it was incredi- 
bly hard to shout across his shoulder: “Knute 
helmets!” and fumble at his saddle for the limp 
pack of his own. The horse was beginning to 
shiver under him, though the Knute vibrations 
were still too high to do more than touch its ani- 
mal brain. But for Jamie there was terror in 
everything, even in the feel of the helmet he was 
shaking out of its pack. He had to grind his teeth 
together to get the courage to pull it down over 
his head — he had the dreadful certainty that it 
would smother him when he did. 

The soft, metallic cloth went on smoothly, its 
woven coils hugging his skull. There was a mo- 
ment more of blindness and the unpleasant ringing 
silence that might be hiding all sorts of terrible 
sounds. Then something like a warmth in the 
very brain began to ooze inward from the helmet, 
and the world came back into focus. 

His first conscious thought after that, as he 
tried to quiet his uneasy horse, was that the Knute 
had not been turned to killing power — yet. The 
helmets were protection against the lesser power 
of the vibrator, but they would not hold out long 
when the Gilson fuse turned the Knute into a 
death weapon. Before that happened they would 
have to find and silence it. 

He swung his excited horse around, shouting 
commands in a voice that echoed thinly in his own 
ears through the helmet, knowing that though it 
would be a matter of moments to locate the source 
of the vibrations, storming it up these twisting 
ravines in the face of what might at any moment 
become deadly waves would be quite another 
matter. 

Everything still shimmered a little — the hills, 
the waterfalls, the face of Morgan hurrying up to 
give him the location of the Knute, 

“That ravine, sir,” he said, squinting over his 
lifted arm. “Between the waterfalls, see?” His 
voice was thin and quivering through the helmet. 
There was a strangely dreamlike air to the whole 
scene, as there always was under the fire of a 
Knute. Everything seemed so unreal that it was 
hard to bring his mind seriously to bear upon the 
problem of attack. 

It was probably in a dream that Jamie thought 
he saw Quanna come down the slanting valley, 
picking her way with delicate steps and holding 
her familiar green velvet cloak up to clear her 



scarlet shoes. She was carrying a white scarf like 
a flag. 

Unexpectedly the rainbow shimmering of the 
Knute began to fade. The illusion of unreality 
trembled a moment longer over the valley and was 
gone, and Jamie blinked to see the illusion of 
Quanna still there, looking up at him diffidently 
under her emerald hood and holding the white 
scarf up like a banner. 

He kicked his horse into a trot and went for- 
ward a little way to meet her, not at all sure what 
he would say when he did. He could feel Mor- 
gan’s eyes on his back and was angrier at her just 
now for making him a fool before Morgan than 
for anything she had done before. 

He reined in silently and sat looking down at 
her without a word. His black-browed scowl was 
forbidding. Quanna put all the delicate submis- 
siveness she could summon into her voice. She 
was twisting the improvised white flag between 
her hands with a nervousness that might or might 
not be assumed. 

“Lord, will you hear a message from Vastari?” 

Her voice was very sweet. There had been a 
time when Jamie might have softened to hear it; 
lethargy was all that possessed him now. He said 
nothing, only nodded shortly. 

“I have persuaded Vastari,” she said, “that be- 
cause I saved your life once and still hold an un- 
fulfilled promise from you, and because you have 
had a warning already from the Knute, you will 
put down all your weapons if Vastari lets you go 
free to the spaceport.” 

Jamie laughed harshly. “How far do you think 
I trust Vastari — or you?” 

“He could kill you,” she reminded him in her 
sweet, reflective voice. “You and most of your 
men. The Knute is too well hidden to find soon, 
and too well barricaded to take in time, even if you 
found it. I know how weak the helmets are 
against the killing strength of the Knute. No, 
you must bargain, Jamie dear. But not with 
Vastari.” She came forward with a lovely, sway- 
ing motion to lay both narrow pale hands upon 
his knee, tilting up her face. 

“I can’t let you go without me, Jamie dear.” 
Her voice quivered as musically as a harp string. 
“This is the only way I know to make you listen. 
Jamie, if you take me back to Earth with you, I 
can save you from Vastari. No, listen!” Her fin- 
gers clasped his knee as she saw anger darken the 
face above her. “Listen, Jamie! If you won’t 
listen for your own sake, remember your men. 
Earth needs them, Jamie — you’ve told me about 
that! Let me go back to Vastari and say you’ll 
give your weapons up — at the spaceport! I can 
make him believe that. Let me ride with you. 
When we reach Port City — ” 

“What’s to prevent him killing us then?” de- 
manded Jamie, his voice harsh, “He won’t let us 





THERE SHALL BE DARKNESS 



27 



out of range, for all your lies.” 

“Oh, Jamie, believe me! Would I risk your life 
now, when I’ve saved it? I can control Vastari — 
I can! But I can’t tell you how. Jamie, I’ll ride 
with you . . . would I do that if there was any 
danger? Jamie . . . I . . . I — ” 

Her face and her voice both quivered suddenly. 
He saw her lift her hands to her eyes and a look 
of terror and confusion went over her features. 
The whole valley began to swim again in a rain- 
bow shimmer, and sound and sight distorted 
faintly even with the helmet’s protection. Vastari 
had turned the Knute on — on Quanna and the 
Earthmen. 

Bewilderment made Jamie’s mind blank for a 
moment. Why would even Vastari risk so safe a 
bargain as he thought his sister was making, 
sacrifice her wantonly with the Earthmen for no 
reason at all? For no reason — 

Then he saw his own men moving to the left 
against the swaying backdrop of the waterfalls 
that flanked Vastari’s ravine, heard the shouts of 
their officers, and knew that someone had blun- 
dered inexcusably. Morgan? Morgan who dis- 
trusted Quanna and the commander’s weakness, 
and had taken fatal advantage of the delay to 
attempt storming the Knute up the ravine? 

Jamie had no way of knowing, and in spite of 
himself he was suddenly and savagely glad that 
Morgan had done it — if he had. The weight was 
off Jamie now — he had no impossible decision to 
make — whether to trust Quanna, whether to risk 
his men, whether to surrender to her pleading as 
he wanted to do and dared not. 

He spurred his restive horse and swung vio- 
lently around to the ravine, shouting to her over 
his shoulder: “I’ll make my own bargain with 

Vastari!” 

Quanna reeled back in a shower of sand from 
the padded hoofs, screaming above the shouts of 
the charging soldiers: “Jamie . . . Jamie, wait! 

He can’t hurt you, Jamie! The Gilson — I have it! 
Jamie, Jamie, you’ll be killed!” 

But if he heard any of that illogical cry he did 
not believe or heed it. The soft thudding of hoof- 
beats in sand, and Jamie’s shouts mingling with 
the voices of his men, were all that came back to 
her. She stood staring as the last Terrestrial 
Patrol on Venus made its last sortie into the moun- 
tains in pursuit of outlaw natives. 

The range of the Knute followed them. Her 
own terror and confusion faded as the vibrations 
died around her, but they did not fade entirely. 
She watched until the last man vanished up the 
ravine between the waterfalls. Then, for lack of 
anything else to do, she began to brush the sand 
from her cloak with long, unconscious motions. 

If Venusians were given to tears, Quanna would 
have wept then. It had all gone so well up to 



this vital point. The plan itself had been simple 
enough — to give Vastari the emasculated Knute 
and let him ambush the Terrestrials, thinking he 
could kill them with the vibrations when he chose. 
Vastari had not wanted to bargain with the Earth- 
men, but she had convinced him of that necessity, 
too, in the end. And she had been sure Jamie 
would surrender. She had seen it in his face, deep 
down, under the anger and distrust — ^because he 
must take his men back to Earth. He could not 
throw their lives away here for an ideal, and he 
had known he must surrender in the end, even if 
it meant lies and a broken bargain at the space- 
port. 

Neither he nor Vastari, of course, had guessed 
that the Knute was harmless to kill. She had not 
trusted Vastari that far, and she had been right 
indeed. Anger shook her briefly out of her 
lethargy. Vastari had been ready to sacrifice her, 
then — if he must — her usefulness was ended now. 
He had no way of knowing that under her robe 
she was clutching the Gilson fuse which made his 
weapon only a dangerous toy. 

She smiled a thin, malicious smile even in the 
midst of her anxiety over Jamie. Vastari must be 
an astonished man just now. His deadly weapon 
powerless, enemies charging up the ravine, his 
men scattering before the gunfire of the Terres- 
trials — Vastari would be retreating already. With 
the Knute or without it. The Venusians would 
not stand long against Earthmen suddenly and 
uncannily impervious to the supposedly deadly 
vibrations of the Knute. 

But it might be long enough to ruin all that 
Quanna had planned for. It might be long enough 
for an arrow or a spear to find a chink of Jamie’s 
cuirass. Vastari’s men were such excellent spear- 
men — 

And she could do nothing now but wait. 

Faintly, far up among the twisting ravines, the 
noises of battle reached a climax and wore them- 
selves out. Quanna sat down on a flat stone close 
beside one of the waterfalls, hearing the thin 
threnody of its music above the diminishing 
sounds from overhead. 

She did not hear the nearer padding of a horse’s 
hoofs coming up the valley until it was nearly 
upon her, and a harsh, hissing voice said : 

“Quanna!” There was a subtle excitement in 
the voice that was not wholly explicable. 

She looked up, startled almost — but not quite — 
out of her self-possession. Then she cried : “Ghej ! 
What , . . why — ” 

He smiled. “So Vastari did attack here,” he 
nodded, glancing qbout the trampled valley floor 
where the Terrestrials had thrown off their packs 
for fighting in the mountains. “I was almost sure 
he would. The old cave’s so near, for one thing. 
What happened?” 




28 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



She told him, keeping her voice level. He sat 
listening, his hands folded on the saddlebow and 
his opaque, old eyes piercing under the horny lids, 
When she had finished he nodded gravely. 

“Yes — I knew it would be something like that 
the day you stole the Knute. There had to be 
something other than simple theft in what you 
did. So it was all a bluff, eh? Well — ” He 
slanted an upward glance toward the labyrinth of 
ravines above them, and then swung off his horse 
a little stiffly. “I’ll wait with you until — some- 
thing happens.’’ 

“But why did you come?’’ Quanna returned be- 
latedly to her first questions. 

Ghej shook his crested head. 

“Something’s happened — I can’t tell you yet.’’ 

She looked at him curiously from under her 
lashes, and saw now on the leathery, old face the 
same repressed excitement she had heard in his 
voice. Excitement, and something like dread. 
But she knew there was no use in questioning him. 

She did not move again until she heard voices 
and sliding footsteps up in the ravine. Then she 
got up and stood quite still in her green cloak 
against the thin, green veil of the waterfall, 
waiting. 

By tv/os and threes, carrying their wounded, the 
Terrestrials came straggling back to the valley. 
Jamie was not among them. 

He was almost the last to return. He came very 
wearily, alone, one arm hanging in the improvised 
sling of his unbuttoned tunic and the blood still 
dripping from what was probably an arrow wound. 

Quanna took one involuntary step toward him 
and then stopped. Jamie looked at her phlegmati- 
cally, saying nothing. She saw in his .face that he 
had ceased to believe or trust anything she might 
do, and he was clinging to the protection his 
lethargy offered him. 

Then he saw Ghej, and his face came alive again. 

“Ghej? What’s happened? Did you change 
your mind? I — ’’ 

“Tell me first how the battle went,” Ghej sug- 
gested. “And let Quanna dress your arm. Were 
the arrows poisoned, Quanna?” 

“Some were,” said Quanna. “May I help you, 
Jamie? Please.” 

He shrugged and sat down on the flat stone. 
“All right. Dressings in any of the packs. There’s 
one lying over there.” 

She went humbly to get it. When she returned 
Jamie was talking in a tired monotone to the Mar- 
tian. He submitted to her swabbing and bandag- 
ing without notice except for a caught breath now 
and then. 

“They got away, of course,” he was saying, 
“With the Knute. Had it barricaded up the ravine, 
but not well enough. Depending on the vibrations, 
I suppose, but the damned fools didn’t know about 



the inert fuse and couldn’t step it up beyond the 
first strength.” 

“I know.” Gh^j nodded. “Quanna has just told 
me — she had the Gilson fuse herself, commander.” 
Quanna looked up over the bandage she was 
fastening and met Jamie’s startled eyes, an uncer- 
tain little smile on her lips. 

“I tried to tell you,” she reminded him gently. 
“You see, I really didn’t mean to have you killed.” 
His black scowl at her was mostly bewilderment 
now. “But you said ... I thought . . . I’m sorry, 
Quanna. But I still don’t understand why — ” 
“Don’t try now.” She laid a cool hand on his 
cheek. “No fever yet? Then I think there was 
no poison. You’ll be able to ride on to Port City, 
Jamie dear. What about me?” 

He frowned a little and took the hand in his. 
“Not yet, Quanna. Before I go I’ve got one score 
to settle. I’m going to find Vastari and get back 
that Knute if it’s the last thing I ever do.” 

Surprisingly, part of the unconscious tension 
that showed on Ghej’s face suddenly relaxed. “Of 
course!” he exclaimed. “Find Vastari! Com- 
mander,^! think I can lead you to him.” 

Quanna and Jamie stared at the old Martian in- 
credulously. He had been in the confidence of 
both enemy camps for so long, and each side had 
come to trust so thoroughly in his impartial neu- 
trality — After a moment Jamie said: 

“Did I understand you, Ghej?” 

“I want to lead you to Vastari,” reiterated the 
Martian impatiently. “I think I know where he’s 
gone. Venusians always scatter after a rout and 
meet again later at the leader’s hiding place. Vas- 
tari will have gone to an old cave near here where 
he used to play as a boy. He’s used it before for 
a rallying point. But he should he alone there 
now for an hour or more. I know the place well — 
it’s quite near here. I’ll — ” 

“But, Ghej,” interrupted Jamie, “I’m going to 
kill him. Don’t you understand? I know Vas- 
tari’s your friend.” 

“I’ll lead you to him,” Ghej persisted stubbornly. 
“Forgive me,” hesitated Jamie, “but I’ve had too 
much treachery lately — or thought I had.” He 
flashed a glance at Quanna. “You’ve never inter- 
fered with either side in this business, Ghej. I 
don’t—” 

“There’ll be no treachery,” Ghej promised him. 
“I swear that, commander. I’ll lead you, alone, to 
Vastari. I promise he’ll be alone, too. I promise 
that no Venusians will interfere on his behalf. I 
promise all that by the symbol of old Mars” — and 
he sketched the ancient crook-sign in the air. 

Jamie pinched his lip and stared at the old man 
under black brows. There was something elabo- 
rately wrong here. He had been aware of the 
subtle excitement in Ghej’s manner ever since they 
had met, and he knew the Martian was concealing 





THERE SHALL BE DARKNESS 



29 



something important. If Ghej was suddenly for- 
saking Vastari, there was every reason to expect 
that he might betray Jamie, too — 

And yet to meet Vastari face to face before he 
left Venus was worth a risk. And he had never 
known a Martian to lie by the sacred crook-symbol 
of the old world. Sudden recklessness made him 
shrug and say: 

“I’ll risk it, Ghej. Only I’ll warn my men first. 
They’ll be after me if I’m not back soon. You 
must tell me where the cave is, Ghej, so they can 
follow if I don’t come back.” 

Ghej nodded. “I can trust you in that.” 

Quanna’s eyes had been following the conversa- 
tion from face to face. All this talk of promises 
and trust seemed foolhardy, particularly with the 
stakes involved. She was utterly bewildered by 
Ghej’s sudden about-face after a life of neutrality, 
but she could see clearly enough that there was 
some strong motive behind it. 

All this was unimportant. The heartbreaking 
thing was that she had failed. She had played her 
last trick upon Jamie and lost the game. There 
was no longer any lever she could use to force her 
way upon the ship that would take him back to 
Earth, unless — unless — 

And then a sudden, blazing idea burst upon her, 
and she saw how simply and easily she might have 
avoided all the strategies of the past and gained 
her one desire by a means so simple it had never 
occurred to her. For once Vastari knew she had 
deliberately betrayed him to Jamie, her life would 
not be safe upon Venus and Jamie would be bound 
in duty to take her away with him. The simplicity 
of it was beautiful. Only — there must be wit- 
nesses to her treachery, so that the story would 
spread among Vastari’s men. Or else Vastari him- 
self must not die — 

“Let me go with you,” she asked the two men 
softly, her mind already spinning with devious 
plans. They gave her a look of doubtful scrutiny. 
“I won’t interfere,” she promised. “I’ve no love 
for Vastari, after what he tried to do to me in the 
valley. Please let me go.” Her voice took on 
the note of irresistible pleading sweetness that 
Jamie remembered well, and he grinned suddenly. 
But before he could speak: . 

“Very well,” said Ghej, after a moment of hesi- 
tation. “It might be well to have you there.” 
She knew by that he was fitting her into whatever 
scheme was in his own mind. She lowered her 
lids demurely and thanked them both. 

Vastari’s hiding place was a narrow cavern high 
up in the scarred valley wall, its mouth veiled by 
green vines thickly abloom with purple trumpet 
flowers. Ghej left his two companions behind an 
outcropping and went in alone. The two waited 
in silence for his return, each too deeply immersed 
in speculation to speak yet about what still had 



to’be said between them. 

Jamie was too much exulted by the prospect of 
meeting Vastari at last to think as much as he 
should of Ghej’s inexplicable conduct, or of his 
own weariness or the pain of his wounded arm. 
He had never performed an execution before, but 
he felt no scruple now about shooting down an 
unsuspecting man in cold blood. It would not be 
a man he killed in the cavern — it would be Ve- 
nusian anarchy itself. It would mean a little 
longer peace for the people of Darva and Port City 
and the other Terrestrial settlements of these 
mountains. Since he could not leave the cities 
those weapons which Earth must have, he could 
at least remove the organized menace which made 
the weapons necessary. 

He was having a daydream. He was thinking 
that perhaps with Vastari dead, no new leader 
would rise soon — Perhaps the Terrestrialized 
cities inside their fortifications would be proof 
against scattered raids; perhaps in the face of 
necessity those skilled workmen who had labored 
under Terrestrial orders might labor of their own 
volition to reproduce the weapons Earth used to 
furnish them. Perhaps — 

“Commander!” It was Ghej’s whisper from 
beyond their shelter. “He’s alone. He has the 
Knute with him. Follow me, commander.” 

Belated caution made Jamie hesitate for one last 
moment. There was still that look of intense, sup- 
pressed excitement about the old Martian, and the 
undernote of sadness in his voice that Jamie had 
never heard before. He had a sudden memory of 
that dream of his, and the curious notion which 
had followed it that Ghej was gray-cloaked Death 
reaching out its hand for him. 

“Hurry!” Ghej was at the cave mouth, beckon- 
ing, Jamie shrugged off all his wisdom and shoul- 
dered after him through the fragrant, purple- 
flowered curtain into the cool dimness beyond. 
Ghej was just ahead of him, Quanna just behind. 

The cavern was heavy with the fragrance of 
trumpet flowers and tremulous with green light 
filtering through the leaves. A man in a scarlet 
cloak sat dejectedly upon a ledge opposite them, 
cradling the folded umbrella of the Knute across 
his knees. 

Vastari look up, startled, as the three figures 
blocked light from the cave mouth. He could not 
quite make out who the other two were against 
the brightness, and he blinked for a moment, trust- 
ing Ghej from long experience and not greatly 
alarmed. 

Jamie slid sidewise to put himself out of sil- 
houette against the light, and his gun hand rose 
so that green light glittered on the barrel. 

“In the name of the Imperial Planet,” he said 
clearly, his voice hollow and echoing between the 
walls, “I condemn you to death, Vastari.” 

Ghej, flattened to the wall halfway between 




30 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



them, laughed suddenly and said: “No!” in the 
hissing Martian syllable of negation. His hand 
came out from under his cloak with sorcerous 
speed, and the gun in it was not for Vastari, but 
for Jamie. 

The commander stared down incredulously. 

“Drop your gun, commander!” said Ghej, jerk- 
ing his own weapon ominously. 

Jamie let his fingers loosen. He was too be- 
wildered ,for a moment even to speak as his gun 
thudded to the sand. He had been half expecting 
something like this, but it didn’t make sense. 
Vastari’s quick Venusian brain, trained in trickery, 
leaped to swifter understanding. 

“Oh, no you don’t!” he cried, and was in midair 
before the words were finished. His red cloak and 
fair hair streamed as he sprang straight at Ghej, 
A bright grin of triumph lighted his face as his 
ringed hand clawed at the Martian’s gun. 

Ghej stepped sidewise half a pace and his other 
hand flashed out from beneath his cloak, moving 
almost too quickly for the eye to see that a small 
Venusian blackjack swung in his fist. It struck 
Vastari an accurately glancing blow. 

The scarlet figure plunged past Ghej and 
sprawled upon the sandy floor. Across it Ghej’s 
gun rose to fix Jamie with a black-muzzled stare. 

With one lifted hand Jamie sketched the old 
crook-symbol of Mars in the air. He said bitterly; 
“Remember? But I might have known — ” 

“I meant it,” Ghej declared, his voice strained 
and shaking a little. “Wait.” 

Vastari was sitting up, spitting out sand and 
vivid Venusian curses. 

“Get up,” ordered Ghej. “Quanna, help him. 
Go back to the ledge, you two. Commander, Vas- 
tari — I have something to say to you both.” 

Vastari spat a series of highly colored oaths at 
him. 

“I’ve gone to great trouble to save your life, my 
boy,” Ghej reminded him mildly. “I shall ex- 
pect something more from you than curses.” 

Jamie’s brows rose. He was beginning to un- 
derstand at least a little, Vastari’s attack upon his 
rescuer was clear now — no Venusian willingly al- 
lows himself to be so obligated if he can avoid it, 
particularly by a trick as flagrant as Ghej’s had 
been. 

“You owe me a promise now, Vastari,” Ghej 
went on. “Part of it is this — listen in peace to 
what I have to tell you. Commander, this con- 
cerns you, too. I followed you from Darva the 
day after you left. I rode very fast. Certain news 
had arrived which you must know before you leave 
Venus. Vastari, you must hear, too.” He hesi- 
tated a moment. Then he drew a deep breath and 
said quietly: “The barbarians have come.” 

There was a long moment of silence in the cave. 
This time it was Jamie whose mind moved quicker. 





THERE SHALL BE DARKNESS 



31 



Vastari said: “Barbarians? But what — ” Jamie’s 
monosyllable interrupted. “Where?” 

“At Yvaca. You know it, the walled valley? 
They landed secretly a week ago and took the city. 
Word had just come over the mountains when I 
left.” 

“Who are they?” 

“The worst of the lot, commander. Mixed 
breeds from half a dozen worlds. The vanguard 
of no one knows how many other shiploads.” 

“The first plague spot,” said Jamie. There was 
silence a moment more. Then Vastari’s voice, 
slurred a little as if he were still bewildered from 
the blow: 

“But what is it, Ghe j ? I — ” 

“I’ve tricked you both,” Ghej told them, still 
holding his gun to meet any sudden impulse on 
the part of either man. “You’ve been enemies for 
a long while, but you have a common enemy now 
and you must listen to me. 

“Vastari, the barbarians have come. Venus is 
being attacked by outworld raiders for the first 
time in three hundred years.” 

“We’ll drive them out,” said Vastari simply. 
“These same barbarians are attacking Earth,” 
Ghej reminded him. “If the Imperial Planet can’t 
keep them off, what can Venus do?” 

“Fight,” said Vastari, his eyes on Ghej’s gun, 
“Not alone. These aren’t Terrestrials bent on 
conquest, my boy. They’re bloodthirsty degene- 
rates of a hundred races with nothing but destruc- 
tion and loot in their minds. And they have 
weapons that even Earth can’t improve on, because 
it was Earth who gave them away, long ago. No, 
there’s no hope for Venus at all now, unless — ” 
He looked appealingly at Jamie. “Commander — ” 
Jamie shrugged. “They need me at home, Ghej.” 
“They need you here. I saw all this happen to 
Mars, commander. I know the signs. We’ve 
never spoken of this before, although the thought 
has been between us whenever we met. This is 
the twilight for you and me and Imperial Earth. 
Do you honestly think civilization can survive 
what’s happening on Earth now? There’s no germ 
of it in the decadent barbarians who are conquer- 
ing there. Their future is far in the past. Earth 
gave them a brief new grip on the tools of con- 
quest, and they’re using them to destroy Earth, 
but when it’s done they’ll go on decaying. They 
don’t understand anything but destruction. 

“My world died of an ill like this, commander. 
Your world is dying of it. But perhaps we can 
save Venus. If we can’t, then this is the twilight 
of civilized man and he will not rise again.” 
“Venus?” echoed Jamie scornfully. “It’s twi- 
light for Venus, too. What does Venus know 
about civilization?” 

Vastari stared uncomprehendingly from one to 
the other, waiting his chance to spring at Ghej’s 
gun. Ghej said heatedly: 



“Do you remember what I said when we parted 
at Darva, commander? This is the one peril that 
might be strong enough to draw all Venusians 
together against a common enemy — teach them the 
value of unity and civilization. It’s as if the gods 
were giving us one last chance. But the barbarians 
won’t wait, commander. Venus isn’t ready. If 
you could only stay, just for a little while — ^just 
long enough to teach them how to fight — ” 
“Teach us how to fight!” roared Vastari, spring- 
ing to his feet, “Why, you dried shell of an out- 
worlder, we were born fighting! This is some 
trick of the Earthmen to lure my men into the 
open. Why should we join with them just as 
we’re winning our freedom? We’ll — ” 

“Freedom!” Jamie derided him. “Freedom to 
loot and kill! What do you know about freedom?” 
“It’s the right to live as we choose!” declared 
Vastari fiercely. “The same right your people 
fought for. Not to have tyrants making our laws, 
policing our towns, collecting our taxes ! We don’t 
want you back, Earthman! We’ll take our chances 
against invaders — if that isn’t another trick of 
Ghej’s.” 

“Trick?” Ghej echoed sadly, “My boy, will you 
have to lose your freedom before you really know 
the meaning of the word? You must earn freedom 
before you can control it. You’d destroy yourself 
if you had what you call freedom now. Wait un- 
til the barbarians come with their weapons. The 
barbarians are destruction itself — wait until that 
overtakes you, my boy, and then remember what 
you had under the Earthmen!” 

“Lies!” shouted Vastari. “Why should we trust 
you or anyone in league with the tyrant Terres- 
trials? We can fight for ourselves!” 

All this, to Quanna, was wasted breath. The 
Venusian mind wanders when talk turns to the 
abstracts, and Quanna had an urgent problem of 
her own to solve. Under her velvet robe she was 
clutching the Gilson fuse that would turn the 
Knute on the ledge beside her into a deadly 
weapon. She thought she had found the way now 
to coerce Jamie — that was all her mind had room 
for. 

She was going to turn the killing force of the 
vibrator upon Vastari. It would take a moment 
or two before the violence of the vibrations shook 
his brain cells apart ; in that time he would realize 
that she was a traitor and her life thereafter would 
be forfeit upon Venus, for Jamie’s sake. He would 
have to take her back with him. 

True, Vastari might die. She did not much care 
if he did. After all, he had been equally ruthless 
when she stood in his way in the valley among the 
Earthmen. If he died, then she would shout what 
she had done to the echoing peaks around the 
cave, where she knew Vastari’s men were hiding. 
Some of them would hear. It would amount to a 




32 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



burning of bridges that would leave Jamie no 
choice but to take her. 

Imperceptibly she had been edging the folded 
Knute onto her knee as Vastari shouted his de- 
fiance and hatred of Earthmen and the Solar Em- 
pire. Ghej and Jamie were absorbed, too. In the 
green gloom of the cavern her green robe made 
her a shadow on the wall. If Ghej saw her slip 
past, he did not heed her. He was too deep in his 
hopeless argument with Vastari. And Jamie’s 
back was turned. 

The Knute was heavy. She slid along the wall 
and passed the curtain of flowering vines, breath- 
ing a little swiftly now. She was putting all hope 
in this last, desperate cast. 

The Knute was not too difficult to set up. She 
had watched the Darva men do it many times. 
Here, beyond the cave mouth, across a stretch of 
sand, was a parapet behind which she could shelter 
long enough to do what she must without inter- 
ruption. She had the glass Gilson fuse ready to 
slip into place. And now — now — 

A long shudder swept the purple flower trum- 
pets before the cave. Then the rainbow shimmer 
of the Knute settled down and all that stretch of 
wall and vine and cave became unreal, a figment 
of dream dancing unsteadily before the eyes. She 
knew that confused terror was invading the minds 
of the three men inside. She called clearly, yet 
softly : 

“Ghej, send out Vastari. I am going to kill 
him.’’ 

There was stunned silence for a moment from 
inside the cave. Then Ghej’s voice, quavering 
with the mind-shaking effect of the vibration: 

“Quanna . . . Quanna, have you gone mad?” 

“I mean it!” she called fiercely. “Send him out 
or I’ll kill you all. I’ve got the Gilson fuse, you 
know!” And she smiled secretly. Jamie would 
not die, even if the full force of the Knute were 
turned into the cave. For Jamie still wore his 
helmet, and it would resist the killing vibrations 
for the few moments it took the others to die. 
She would be sorry to kill Ghej, but — 

There was silence in the unreal cavern, shim- 
mering behind its shimmering vines. Too long a 
silence. They were planning something. 

“Send him out!” she called. “Send him now! 
I’m putting in the Gilson fuse, Ghej ! Commander ! 
Do you want to die with him?” 

Still silence. 

Quanna found the socket for the little glass 
pencil of the fuse. She fumbled a bit, putting it 
in. It stuck the first time. Then there was a 
small click and she felt a subtle change in the 
vibration of the Knute. Deeper, heavier. The 
purple trumpets of the vine began to wilt, folding 
softly upon their stems. The leaves crumpled. 
Death was pouring into the cave. 



“The fuse is in,” called Quanna. “Are you ready 
to die, Vastari?” 

There was a heavy step upon the cave floor. 
The curtain of withering vines swept aside and a 
man stood in the doorway looking up at her, 
Jamie. His black head bare of the shielding 
helmet. He stood in silence, feet planted wide, 
frowning at her somberly under heavy brows. He 
was like a figure in a dream, shimmering in the 
full bath of the killing rays. 

“Jamie, Jamie!” Quanna sobbed, and hurled the 
Knute backward off the parapet. Its rays swept 
up across the cliff in a shimmering rainbow and 
the machine clattered down the slope in an ava- 
lanche of pebbles, its death ray fanning the 
clouds, 

Quanna could not remember afterward stum- 
bling down the rocks toward the cave. Her first 
conscious awareness was of Jamie fending her 
unsteadily off his wounded arm as he leaned 
against the cave wall with closed eyes, waiting for 
his brain to stop shaking with the force of the 
Knute. 

In the cave, Ghej and Vastari sat with heads in 
hands, blind and sick, as the vibrations faded 
slowly inside their skulls. Quanna was abstractly 
glad that they still lived. Now her treachery was 
established without the need for outside evidence. 
But it had been a near thing — too near, for Jamie. 
She shivered a little,, guiding him to a seat on the 
ledge. 

After a while Vastari lifted his head unsteadily 
and gave Quanna a poisonous glare. She met it 
opaquely. His eyes shifted to Jamie and he said 
in a bitter voice: 

“Damn you, Earthman — I owe you my life! 
Now w’nat did you want badly enough to take that 
risk for me?” 

“Nothing,” Jamie said wearily, not lifting his 
head. “Don’t bother me.” 

There was something so electric in the breath- 
less silence that followed that in a moment Jamie 
looked up to see what was causing it. He met 
Vastari’s look of blank amazement. 

“Nothing?” echoed Vastari in an incredulous 
voice. “Then why — ” 

“Oh, sure — I came here to kill you.” Jamie 
spoke in a tired and indifferent voice. “But things 
are different now, Venus is going to need her 
leaders.” 

“But — you risked your life! No one ever does 
that without a reason!” 

Jamie looked at him in silence. He was not sure 
himself just why he had done it. And there was 
no hope of making this Venusian understand how 
he felt about the world to which he had given 
twenty years and all his hopes and interests, the 
world upon which mankind might have found its 
ultimate future — 




THERE SHALL BE DARKNESS 



33 



“You could command me to join forces with 
you, if you wanted that.” Vastari was still 
groping. 

“You’d be no good to me at the point of a gun,” 
Jamie shrugged. “Fighting the barbarians will 
be a full-time job. I wouldn’t want an ally I won 
like that.” 

Vastari sat very still, considering Jamie with 
fathomless eyes. Perhaps Ghej’s warnings had 
frightened him more than his pride had let him 
admit. Perhaps he had been waiting for a chance 
to surrender gracefully. Perhaps this first en- 
counter with genuine selflessness honestly im- 
pressed him. There was no guessing what went 
on behind that expressionless face. But at last 
Vastari said slowly; 

“My life belongs to you until I redeem it, 
Earthman. I am pledged to Ghej, too. Will it 
satisfy you both if I offer my men and myself as 
your 'sworn allies until the invaders are driven 
away?” 

Ghej’s hooded head came up for the first time 
since the vibrations had filled the cave. He stared 
long and unblinkingly at the young Venusian. 
Jamie was staring, too. Presently Jamie’s eyes 
shifted to Ghej, and the two exchanged a long, 
questioning look in which hope was slowly dawn- 
ing. After a moment Ghej said in a shaken voice : 

“Venus is the morning star from Earth this time 
of year.’' 

Jamie smiled. It was his own figure of speech, 
coming spontaneously into the Martian’s mind. 
But he only said practically: 

“It would mean much hard work, Vastari. Much 
sacrifice.” 

Vastari said with dignity: “Tell me what you 
need.” 

“More than you can give, perhaps. You can’t 
fight the barbarians with spears. Even if you 
drove this group out by a miracle, there’ll be more. 
You’ll need modern weapons. There are men in 
the Terrestrialized cities who know how to make 
them, but they need supplies. That’ll mean law 
and order, Vastari. You can’t get raw materials 
or transport them in an anarchy where every 
brawling tribe has the ‘freedom’ to do as it likes. 
You’ll have to forget all quarrels, forget personal 
jealousies, forget greed and loot and fighting. It’ll 
mean back-breaking labor, night and day. You’ve 
got to work the mines and the machines again, 
hard and fast. We’ll help all we can. We’ll see 
that your trained workmen are taught what little 
else*they may need to know, before we leave. But 
we must leave soon, Vastari.” 

Vastari was watching the Earthman’s face with 
narrowed eyes, searching for some sign of the 
trickery he could not yet believe wholly absent. 
His quicksilver mind was turning the points over 
as Jamie brought them up, but nowhere, appar- 
ently, could he find anything that might be two- 



edged. Finally he nodded, still with that puzzled 
look, 

“Very well, it shall be done.” 

Yes, thought Jamie, with Ghej’s help it might 
yet be done, after all. The Venusians were so 
childlike in so many ways, irresponsible, unable 
to see beyond the needs of the next moment. But 
Vastari, with his dream of freedom, distorted 
though it was, proved them more capable of pursu- 
ing an ideal than Jamie would ever have believed. 
And if the barbarians frightened them enough, 
perhaps they might work together to destroy them. 
And the work together, the common danger — 
would it be enough to build a civilization on? 
Jamie knew he would never hear the answer to 
that question. 

The walled valley of Yvaca was doubly walled 
with flame. From the last Terrestrial spaceship 
left on Venus, slanting down toward it on broad, 
steel wings, it looked like the valley of hell. 
Only the high-walled Terrestrial city of Yvaca 
remained now; all around it the native village that 
filled the valley had been fired by the invaders to 
keep the Venusians at bay. But there was one 
ship left on Venus, and Yvaca was still vulnerable 
from the air. 

In the deep night twilight flame lapped high 
about the city walls and lighted the low clouds 
over Yvaca with a sullen, sulphurous glow. Look- 
ing down from that height as the ship slid down 
a long aerial incline above the peaks, Jamie could 
not see the Venusian mountaineers ringing Yvaca. 
But he knew they were there. He spoke into a 
microphone and felt the floor slant more sharply 
as Yvaca seemed to rise at a tilted angle in the 
port before him. 

In the heart of the city, ringed by blackened 
ruins, lay the invaders’ spaceship. They had 
brought it down in one careless sliding crash that 
demolished three city blocks. A pale stab of light 
shot upward from the city as the barbarians 
sighted the swooping ship; Jamie could see small, 
distorted figures running for their ruin-cradled 
vessel, and his teeth showed in a hard grin as 
lightning flamed downward from the ship. There 
was something horrible about the barbarians even 
from this height; their warped, degenerate shapes 
were vicious parodies of men. 

Blue fire fanned downward again from the Earth 
ship and touched the other vessel with a gout of 
flame. Half of it flew into glittering flinders that 
made the air sparkle over Yvaca. And now, 
thought Jamie, there was one ship left on Venus. 
The first of them had come from Earth for con- 
quest. This last, he told himself, would set Ve- 
nusians free of more than Earthly domination be- 
fore it left. 

The pale, stabbing ray of the barbarians’ weapon 
shot skyward again, and the Terrestrial ship slid 




34 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



deftly sidewise as the ray shaved it, raking the 
city below with fingers of blue light that were 
tipped with flame wherever they touched Yvaca. 

From this height there was silence in the vessel. 
Jamie knew that below him, in the red inferno of 
the valley, cliff echoed to bellowing cliff with the 
roar of gunfire and the crash of sliding walls and 
the deep-throated soughing of flame. But he 
would never hear the sounds of Venus any more. 
Already the city below was afire. Those who 
escaped would find Venusians waiting in a grim 
circle around the valley. The first plague spot of 
the malady that was killing Earth was being wiped 
out here in flame. 

There would be other spots, perhaps very soon. 
It might be well for Venus if they came soon, to 
keep the knowledge of peril fresh in careless 
minds. For Venus would have to meet the next 
attacks unaided. Remembering the feverish ac- 
tivity now in progress among the mountain cities, 
Jamie thought Venus might meet them well. He 
could not be sure about that, of course. He would 
have to leave Venus, never knowing. 

He spoke again into the microphone and the 
ship banked for the last time over flaming Yvaca 
under the glowing clouds. No more rays leaped 
skyward from the city. The barbarians were in 
full flight. His work was done. 

Cool hands upon his cheeks roused Jamie from 
his contemplation of the inferno below as the ship 
swung away. He looked up and smiled wearily 
into Quanna’s face. 

“Your last look at Venus, my dear,” he told her, 
nodding down. She gave him a puzzled, little 
frown under delicate brows. 

“It’s not too late yet, Jamie. Oh, why wouldn’t 
you stay? It would have been so easy to let the 
rest go on. You and I on Venus might have ruled 
the world!” 

He shook his head helplessly. “I’m not a free 
man, Quanna. Less now than ever. I’ve a duty 
to Venus as well as to Earth — I’ve got to help hold 
the barbarians off until Venus is ready for them. 
Earth needs every man and every gun, but not to 
save herself. Earth doesn’t know it, and I don’t 
suppose she ever will, but her duty now is to keep 
the barbarians busy for Venus’ sake—” He looked 
up at the girl’s uncomprehending face and smiled. 
“Never mind. Go get your harp, Quanna, and sing 



to me, will you? We’ll sit here and watch the last 
of Venus — Look, we’re coming into daylight al- 
ready.” 

Far behind them the sullen glow of burning 
Yvaca faded as they neared the edge of the cloud- 
tide. Diluted sunlight was pouring down upon the 
tremendous turquois mountains and the leaning 
cliffs astream with waterfalls, all the high, blue 
country they would never see again. Quanna 
strummed her Martian harp softly. 

“I’ll probably be court-martialed,” Jamie mused, 
his eyes on the mountains falling away below. “Or 
— maybe not. Maybe they’ll need fighting men too 
badly for that. I’m doing you no service, Quanna, 
or myself, either. For your sake I wish you could 
have stayed.” 

“Hush,” said Quanna, and struck the harp string. 
“I’ll sing you ‘Otterburn’ again. Forget about all 
that, my dear. Listen.” And her thin, sweet voice 
took up the ballad. 

“The Otterburn s a bonny barn. 

It’s pleasant there to be. 

But there is naught on Otterburn 
To feed my men and me — ” 

Jamie laughed suddenly, but he shook his head 
when she lifted questioning eyes. He had remem- 
bered his dream again, and unexpectedly it made 
fantastic sense that perhaps only a Celt might have 
read into the dream and the song that had inspired 
it. He hummed the stanza again : 

“Oh, I have dreamed a dreamy dream 
Beyond the Isle of Skye, 

For I saw a dead man win a fight 
And I think that man was 

The clouds below were thickening now between 
him and the great blue mountains of Venus that 
slanted away below. The Isle of Skye, the morn- 
ing star. The hope of civilized man. He was 
leaving the future behind him, if mankind had 
any future at all. James Douglas was a dead man 
indeed, sailing out into the nighttime of space 
toward a dying world where nothing but death 
waited for him. But he left the Isle of Skye 
behind, and on it a battle won against the powers 
of evil. If ever a dead man won a fight, thought 
Jamie, I think that man was I. 

The ship drove on into darkness. 



THE END. 




10 Tits 

This department is being prepared on December 
8th ; it takes time to perform the complex mechani- 
cal operations of making a magazine — the physical 
object per se, that is — and to ship it. The imme- 
diate interest of things yet to come is, on this 
date, a bit more widespread in scope than the is- 
sue of Astounding that will be made up about a 
month hence. The position of America has been 
violently changed in twenty-four hours. The 
make-up of our lesser community of science-fic- 
tion is of interest, if not importance; it is natu- 
rally affected by the change in the larger com- 
munity of which it is a part. The immediately 
predictable effects are about as follows: L. Ron 
Hubbard is Lieutenant L. Ron Hubbard, U. S. N. 
We have a few of his stories on hand; whether he 
will, now, have time for more I cannot know. 

Robert Heinlein is Lieutenant Robert Heinlein, 
U. S. N., as has been mentioned before in this 
magazine. His station is not yet determined, and 
I do not know whether he will be able to do any 
further writing; I greatly doubt that he will. He 
had been taking a vacation from writing since 
completing “Methuselah’s Children.” There are 
no Heinlein manuscripts on hand, 

Anson MacDonald is in Navy service equally; it 
is practically certain that we will have to wait 
until the end of the war before he will be able to 
write for us again. For small blessings, give 
praises; MacDonald had completed and sent Into 



TO COOIE 

the magazine a new long novel which reached me 
four days ago— our check in payment reached him 
about eighteen hours before he reported for active 
duty. The novel is scheduled for the April and 
May issues, a 70,000-word two-part serial. It rep- 
resents material fully up to MacDonald’s high 
standard in writing, and involves a theme which 
has never been more than hinted at in any field of 
writing before. A civilization truly and soundly 
based on complete control of genetics — not a story 
about genetic control, but about a civilization 
based on that fundamental, 

A, E. van Vogt is a Canadian; probably his 
status will not be changed ; if anything, his work 
will increase in volume. Its quality is well at- 
tested by several new stories on hand now. Next 
month’s Astounding carries his complete novel, 
“Recruiting Station,” a yarn with a lovely idea 
as its backbone. When there’s war, man power as 
well as technical power is needed. In a war of 
worlds, that’s more true even than in a world war. 
There’s a war in the future, says van Vogt, and 
they’re setting up recruiting stations — with trans- 
portation to the battle lines guaranteed. But the 
recruiting stations are set up in ancient Greece, 
in the old, bold Roman Empire, in the days of 
every great war that has been — or will be for the 
next dozen centuries! 

There’s a story in that idea — and van Vogt 
it! j-lie Editor. 



“Second Stage Lensmen” was a nearly unani- 
mous choice for first place in the December is- 
sue. There was some little difference of opin- 
ion on second place — and the real competition 
came on the short stories. Generally, novelettes — 
as I said in announcing the large size — can be 
better science-fiction, because they give more 
scope for development of the background. This 
issue shows something of that effect; many let- 
ters said: “The stories were all good, and it’s 

hard to make a first-second-third choice, but — ** 
AST— 3B 



and listed them about as shown here. The result, 
you’ll notice, is that between the three short sto- 
ries, the total spread of point score was only 0,4 
— ^which is as close to a tie as you could get. 



PLACE STORY 

1. Second Stage Lensmen 


AUTHOR 

E. E. Smith 


POINTS 

1.52 


2. 


Defense Line 


Vic Phillips 


2.5 


3. 


Bullard Reflects 


Malcolm Jameson 


3.4 


4. 


Homo Saps 


Webster Craig 


3.7 


5. 


Operation Successful 


Robert Arthur 


3.8 



The Editor. 



36 




THE SORCERER OE RHIANNON 

By leip Brackett 

• They had ways of surviving, on ancient Mars, that carried 
over to tangle and twist the lives of three people of a race 
alien to their age, their planet, their whole scheme of things — 



Illustrated by Kolliker 



He had been withoxrt water for three days. The 
last of his concentrated food, spared by the sand- 
storm that had caught him away from his ship 
and driven him beyond all hope of finding it, 
rattled uselessly in his belt pouch, because his 
throat refused to swallow. 

Now Max Brandon stood on a dune of restless 
ocher dust, watching the coming of another storm. 

It rolled crouching across the uneasy distances 



of the desert, touched blood-red above by the little 
far sun of Mars. Brandon heard the first faint 
keening of it above the thin whine of the eternal 
winds that wander across the dead sea bottoms. 

Brandon’s sharp-cut face, handsome with its sea- 
blue eyes and bronzed skin, and the thin scars of 
battle that enhanced rather than marred, creased 
into a grin. 

“So the grave-robber is going to be buried in- 




THE SORCERER OF RHIANNON 



37 



Stead this time,” he whispered. The skirling wind 
blew ocher dust in his eyes and mouth, the gold- 
brown stubble of beard. 

“All right,” he said to the storm. “See if you 
can make me stay down.” He waved a mocking 
hand at it and staggered down into the hollow. 

To himself, he said ironically, “There’s no one 
here to see your act, Brandy. No pretty ladies, no 
interplanetary televisors. The storm doesn’t care. 
And you’re going to die, dead, just like ordinary 
mortals.” 

His knees buckled under him, flung him head- 
long in the stifling dust. The simplest thing to 
do would be just to lie there. Drowning in these 
Martian sea bottoms was just like drowning in 
the sea. All you had to do was breathe. 

He thought of all the ships that had foundered 
when there was water here, and how his bones 
would join theirs in the end. Red dust, blowing 
forever in the wandering wind. 

His white grin flashed briefly. “I always said. 
Brandy, that you knew too much to take advice.” 

Everybody had advised him not to come. Jar- 
thur, head of the Society for the Preservation of 
Martian Relics. Sylvia Eustace. And Dhu Kar 
of Venus. 

Jarthur wanted to put him in the Phobos mines 
for looting, which was bad. Sylvia wanted to 
marry him, which was worse. And Dhu Kar, his 
best competitor and deadliest enemy, wanted to 
get to the Lost Islands first, which was worst of 
all. 

“So I came,” Brandon reflected. “Right in the 
middle of the stormy season. And here, appar- 
ently, I stay.” 

But he couldn’t stay down. Something drove 
him up onto his feet again, something that 
wouldn’t listen to what his reason was saying 
about its being no use. 

He went on, part of the time on hands and knees, 
to nowhere, with the Martian desert-thirst burning 
him like living fire, and the first red-dun veils of 
the storm blowing past him. 

He began to see things in the clouds. Ships in 
full sail, the ancient high-prowed Martian galleys. 
He could hear the thrumming of their rigging, 
knowing with the last sane scrap of his mind that 
it was his own blood drumming in his ears, 
i The wind screamed over him and the red dust 
rolled like water. It was dark, and the galleys 
rushed by faster and faster. They got clearer, so 
that he knew that he was going, and still he 
wouldn’t lie down. 

And then, through those fleeing phantom ships, 
he saw a wreck tossing. 

Her masts were gone, her hull canted, her high- 
flared bow thrust up in a last challenge to the 
wind. Max Brandon knew, because he could see 
so clearly the wide-winged bird that made her fig- 
urehead, that he was almost dead. 



His dust-filled eyes lost even the phantom ships. 
He wondered distantly why he should imagine a 
wreck among them. The wind hurled him on. 
He fell. And, driven by some blind, dogged stub- 
bornness, struggled up again. 

The wind flung him with spiteful viciousness 
against something. Something solid. Something 
hard and unmoving, in the heart of the restless 
Martian desert. 

It hurt. He went down and would have stayed 
there, but for the stubborn thing that lashed him 
on. 

There was metal under his hands, singing with 
the impact of the storm. He looked up, forcing 
himself to see. A deck slanted down to him, 
bare of everything but the stumps of broken masts. 

He stared at the ship, not believing his sight. 
But his aching body told him it was there. He 
thumped it with his hand, and it rang thinly. 

It wasn’t any use, really, because he had no 
water. But the thing that had driven him kicked 
him now up over the broken rail and along the 
canting deck to the broad cabin in the stern. 

Feeble and distant, his heart was pounding with 
excitement. A ship, sunk ages ago in the Sea of 
Kesh, sailing through the red clouds of the 
storm — 

It was impossible. He was delirious. But the 
closed door of the cabin was before him, and he 
tried to open it. 

There was no catch. 

He grew angry. He’d come this far. He 
wouldn’t be balked. He drew himself erect, his 
tawny hair whipping in the storm, and roared at 
the door, commanding it to open. 

It did. Max Brandon walked through, and it 
closed silently. 

There was soft light in the cabin, and a faint 
choking pungence. A table of Martian teak in- 
laid with gold stood in the center of a room shaped 
to the curve of the galley’s stern, furnished in 
somber richness. 

A man sat in a carven chair beside the table. 
He was fair and slight in a plain black robe, with 
no ornament but a curious band of gray metal 
about his head, bearing the figure of a wide- 
winged bird. 

His face was gentle, grave, rather young. Only 
in the strong lines about his mouth and the fathom- 
less darkness of his eyes was there any hint — 

Of what? Max Brandon, dying on his feet, 
knew that the man wasn’t there. Simply wasn’t, 
because he couldn’t be. 

He looked alive, but he was too rigid, and his 
eyes didn’t wink. Didn’t wink or move, staring 
at the girl who sat facing him. 

She was hardly more than a child, with the sup- 
ple strength of a sleeping deer in the long lines 
of her, and the stamp of a burning, vital pride still 
on her clear-cut face. 




38 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



She wore a short white tunic with a jeweled 
girdle, and the cloth was no whiter than her skin. 
Her eyes looked at the man, unconquered even in 
death. 

They were golden, those eyes, clear and rich as 
pure metal. Her hair grew low in a peak between 
them, swept back and down and hung rippling 
over her shoulders. 

Max Brandon stared at it, swaying on his feet, 
feeling the blood swell and throb in his throat. 

Her hair was blue. 

Blue. The deep, living blue of an Earthly sea, 
with tints of cobalt in its ripples and the pale 
color of distance where it caught the light. 

He followed it down across her white arms, and 
then he saw the shackles on her wrists. Her hands 
lay on the table, slim and strong, and on the thumb 
of the left one was a ring with a dull-blue stone. 

Brandon’s brain burned with more than thirst. 

“The Prira Cen!’’ he whispered. “The Blue 
Hairs, the oldest race of Mars. Half mythicaL 
They were almost extinct when the Sorcerers of 
the Lost Islands were the governing brain of the 
planet, and that was forty thousand years ago!” 

A wave of blackness closed over him, as much 
from that staggering thought as from his desper- 
ate weakness. He fought it off, clinging to life 
for just that one instant longer — 

Something sparkled dully on the table, close by 
the arm of the man in black. A small, transparent 
bottle, filled with amber liquid. 

Somehow he crossed the deck. The bottle was 
sealed with some curious substance. He struck 
the neck off against the table. 

A drop of the fluid splashed on his hand. It 
tingled as though charged with a strong current, 
but Brandon was beyond caring. He drank. 

It was strong, burning and cooling all at once. 
Some of the madness died out of Brandon’s eyes. 
He stood for a moment looking at that beautiful, 
incredible, impossible girl with the sea-blue hair. 

A racing bolt of flame went through him sud- 
denly, a queer shivering agony that had a perverse 
pleasure in it. He felt his mind rocking in its bed 
like an engine with a broken shaft, and then there 
was darkness and a great silence. 

He came to sprawled in a heap of dust. For a 
moment he thought he was back in the desert 
again. Then the madness that had happened swept 
back, and he got up, blinking into utter darkness. 
The light mechanism must have failed at last. 

Dust rose and choked him. He blundered into 
a corner of the table, and something fell behind 
him with a dry, soft whoosh. He couldn’t see the 
door at all. When he finally found it with his 
hands, there was no catch. 

Blind panic shook him for a moment, until he 
remembered how he had got in, A little incredu- 
lously, he shouted at the door. 



“Open!” 

It didn’t budge. And Brandon stood in the 
darkness like a trapped rat. 

From somewhere, quite unbidden, a thought 
came. 

“Set your hands on it and push. It will come 
open.” 

He did. His palms barely touched the metal, his 
muscles had hardly gathered for the effort. The 
door broke from its hinges and fell with a thin 
clash on the deck. 

Pale Martian daylight flooded the cabin. Bran- 
don saw now that the cushions and hangings had 
crumbled to dust. The teakwood table still stood, 
but its grain was splitting and softening. The 
man in black had vanished completely, save for the 
gray metal circlet that lay in a scatter of dust on 
the floor. 

Brandon knew now what had fallen behind him. 
His gaze darted to the woman, and his heart con- 
tracted with a faint stab of pain. 

There v/as only a naked skeleton, beautiful even 
now in its curved white perfection. The shackles, 
the blue stone of the thumb ring glinted dully on 
fleshless bones, the jeweled girdle burned across a 
splintered pelvis. 

That little puff of air he had let in must have 
done it. Whatever mechanism had controlled the 
door — he made a wild guess at some seleno-cell 
sensitive to thought currents instead of light — 
had gone with the rest. 

Remembering the faint pungent odor, he won- 
dered if that had had anything to do with preserv- 
ing the bodies. 

The cabin appeared to be hermetically sealed. 
The metal of the ship was some unfamiliar alloy, 
incredibly strong to resist the ages of immersion 
on the sea floor, and the further ages of dryness 
and wind and rubbing sand. 

It was worn thin as paper under his fingers, but 
uncorroded. 

They had had knowledge, those ancient scien- 
tists of the Lost Islands, that no one had ever 
found again. That was why men lost their lives 
in the desert, hunting for them, 

Brandon looked forward along the deck. The 
storm had nearly buried the ship again, but the 
wings of the bird on the high prow still gleamed 
defiantly. 

He grinned half derisively at the thick pulse of 
excitement beating in him. He was lionized as a 
dashing explorer, publicly cursed and secretly 
patronized by scientific men, the darling of 
wealthy collectors — all because of the archaeologi- 
cal treasures he stole from under the noses of 
planetary governments. 

All this gave him money and fame and adoring 
fans, mostly feminine. It gave him the continual 
heady excitement of dancing on the edge of disas- 




THE SORCERER OF RHIANNON 



39 



ter. It gave him glamour and a gay flamboyant 
theatricalism, in all of which he reveled. 

But underneath all that was the something that 
drew him to the old forgotten places and the lost 
and buried things. The poignant something that 
was real and sincere and that he didn’t understand 
at all. 

Only that he loved catching glimpses through 
the veil of time, finding the scraps of truth that 
lay solid under legends. 

He went back into the cabin. The gray metal 
circlet he scooped out of the dust and set jauntily 
on his gold-brown hair. He paused over the skele- 
ton of the woman, reluctant to touch it. But he 
wanted the girdle. 

He reached for it. And then, oddly, he took 
the dull-blue ring instead. 

He put it on his ring finger and was suddenly 
giddy. He gulped a food tablet and felt better. 
The woman’s skeleton had fallen into grayish 
powder, broken by his slight touch. 

He picked the girdle out of it and clasped it 
around his lean waist and turned to search the 
cabin. 

There were chests of scrolls acid-etched on thin 
metal that blackened and flaked as he looked at 
them. The letters he did glimpse were older than 
any he had ever seen. 

There were instrtunents and gadgets of utterly 
inexplicable design, far too many to carry. The 
frailer ones were ruined, anyway. He stuffed a 
few of the more enduring into his pockets and 
went out. 

At the broken door he paused with a small, un- 
pleasant shiver. To break down a door simply 
by touching it — 

Then he grinned. “Buck up, Brandy. This 
metal is so thin that a baby could knock holes 
in it.’’ 

As though in mocking answer, the port rail 
crumpled, sending a flood of red sand across the 
deck. The bird on the prow trembled, and for an 
instant Brandon thought it was going to fly. 

It fell into the dust, and was buried. 

He got away from there, and watched the ship 
die her final death in the dry red sea. And then 
he said to himself: 

“Now what? No water, precious little food, no 
idea of where I am. Speaking of water — ’’ 

That stuff in the bottle had certainly been po- 
tent. It had revived him like a shot of adrenalin. 
But now — 

He was thirsty again. ^ 

He tried to ignore it, making his plans. He had 
thought he was near the Lost Islands when he 
landed. In fact, he’d landed because he thought 
he saw the outline of dry harbors and stone quays. 

“But I didn’t. And the position of the Lost 



Islands is only conjecture, ansrway. No two au- 
thorities agree.’’ 

He stood there, his scarred, handsome face 
twisted into a defiant grin that he knew was as 
hollow as his stomach, the wide-winged bird on 
the gray circlet glittering above his forehead. 
Then he forced himself to shrug jauntily and start 
off across the ocher sand. 

Thirst grew in him with the arid touch of dust. 
The wind whined at him, and presently he heard 
a voice in it. He knew it was delirium, and re- 
fused to listen. 

The spurt of strength the strange amber fluid 
had given him drained away. He fell in the blow- 
ing dust and cursed it in a choking whisper. And 
the voice said: 

“Strike it with your hand,’’ 

He did, because he thought it was his own de- 
sire speaking. He struck the side of the dune be- 
fore him, weakly, with his doubled fist. 

There was a flash and a small thunderclap, and 
water ran. 

He caught it in his cupped hands and drank like 
an animal, splashing himself, sobbing. Then he 
got up and stood staring at the wet place in the 
dust and his wet hands. 

He backed off, slowly, his blue eyes widening 
and paling in a stricken face. He shuddered end 
passed a hand across his damp beard. 

“Merciful heavens!” he whispered. And gripped 
hard at the rising terror in him. 

“The power isn’t yours,” said a gentle thought- 
voice in his brain. “It’s merely transmitted 
through your body.” 

Brandon closed his eyes and held his clenched 
fists against his temples. 

“No,” he said. “I’ll die decently of thirst if I 
have to. But I won’t go mad.” 

“You’re not mad,” said the voice, “Don’t be 
frightened.” 

The last was faintly condescending, which made 
Brandon angry. He threw his head back, so that 
he looked rather like the bird of prey on his cir- 
clet. 

“Who are you?” he demanded. “And where?” 
“I am Tobul, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. My 
body is dust. But the essential frequencies that 
activated that body are in you.” 

“That’s witchcraft,” said Brandon curtly, “and 
that’s madness.” 

“Witchcraft to the ignorant,” murmured the 
voice coolly. “Simple science to the learned. Life 
is essentially a matter of electrical frequencies, a 
consumption and emission of energy. There is 
nothing strange about charging metal with electri- 
cal life. Why should there be anything strange in 
charging any other substance with any other phase 
of the basic stuff of the universe?” 

Brandon looked at the restless desert, tasted the 
dust on his tongue, listened to the wailing wind. 



40 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



He pulled a hair from his tawny beard, and felt 
the hurt of it. He took a deep breath. 

“All right,” he said. “How did you get into 
me?” 

But the voice whispered now, and not to him. 
“Desolation,” it said. “Death and desolation. 
The sea, the clouds, the strength and power of life, 
all gone. Is this truly Mars?” 

Max Brandon felt a wrenching sadness go 
through him, and then a swift stab of fear, very 
faint, like things in a half-forgotten dream. 

“I must get to Rhiannon,” said the voice of 
Tobul. “At once.” 

There was no emotion in it now. Brandon 
sensed an iron control, an almost barbarian 
strength. 

“Rhiannon,” he repeated. “I never heard — 
You said Tobul, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms?” 
Brandon sat down, because his knees wouldn’t 
hold him. 

“Rhiannon,” he whispered. “That’s the ancient 
name for the Lost Islands. And ‘Lord of the 
Seven Kingdoms’ was the title of the sorcerer- 
scientist who ruled half Mars, from his seat in 
Rhiannon.” 

Ancient things. Things deeply buried, nearly 
forgotten, clouded by superstition and legend. 
Forty thousand years — 

Brandon sat still, just clinging to his sanity. At 
length he repeated quietly: 

“How did you get into me?” 

“When the ship sank, so suddenly that nothing 
could be done, I transferred my essential to a 
bottle of liquid prepared for the purpose — a 
faintly radioactive suspension medium. Those 
were troubled times — one went prepared. 

“The collective frequencies that form my con- 
sciousness remained there unharmed, until you 
drank the liquid. Fortunately it was not poison- 
ous, and you gave me easy entry into a satisfac- 
tory host.” 

A picture of the man at whose side the bottle 
had been came back to Brandon — the fair, grave 
face and the impenetrable eyes. That man, dead 
forty thousand years — 

Brandon ran his tongue over dry lips. “When 
are you going to get out of me?” 

“Probably never I should have to build another 
body, and the secret of that is known only . . . 
Brandon!” 

It was as though a hand gripped his brain. The 
impact of that will was terrifying. Brandon felt 
his mind stripped naked, probed and searched and 
shaken, and then dropped. 

“Her jeweled girdle he took,” murmured Tobul, 
“and my circlet, and some instruments. The gir- 
dle is only metal and jewel — look at your hands!” 
Brandon looked, raging, but unable toi help 
himself. 



“The blue ring, Brandon, that you took from 
her thumb, is it there?” 

It glinted dully in the sun. Brandon looked at 
it and said simply: “I don’t understand. What 
ring?” 

Tobul whispered: “His eyes don’t see, he has 
no memory. Yet I can’t be sure. I was faint with 
the effort of breaking the door, after so many cen- 
turies of quiescence. She may have blanked his 
mind. But it’s a chance I must take. 

“Brandon, we go to Rhiannon.” 

Brandon got up, and there was something 
ominous in the set of his broad shoulders. 

“Just a minute,” he said evenly. “I want to find 
the Lost Islands, too. This possession business 
has its fascinating angles. I’ll admit, so I’m trying 
to be tolerant of you. But I won’t be ordered 
about.” 

“Take the instrument out of your left-hand 
pocket and look at it.” Tobul’s voice was utterly 
without emotion. 

“Do you hear me, Tobul? I won’t have the pri- 
vacy of my mind invaded. I won’t be ordered — ” 

He stopped. Again the hand of that iron will 
closed on his brain. The sheer calm strength of 
it numbed him, as though he had been an ant try- 
ing to stem an avalanche. 

He fought, until sweat ran down the channels 
of his face and his lean body ached, fought to 
keep his hand from reaching into his pocket for 
the instrument. 

But the dark iron power of Tobul’s mind rolled 
in on him, wrapped and crushed and smothered 
him with a slow, patient ease. 

Trudging over the ocher waste, following the 
mysterious, quivering needle in Tobul’s instru-; 
ment, Max Brandon still could grin. 

“Brandy, Brandy,” he murmured. “I always 
said drinking would get you into trouble!” 

Two chill Martian nights passed, and two days. 
Brandon got used to drawing water from the dust 
with a blow of his fist. It pleased him, like a small 
boy with a firecracker. 

Tobul, in a rare fit of communicativeness, said 
it was simply a matter of releasing mental energy 
which caused oxygen and hydrogen to unite from 
the air. The blow was only a means of directing 
the mental concentration. 

The Lord of the Seven Kingdoms had with- 
drawn himself utterly. Brandon felt no discom- 
fort, nothing different from his usual tough health. 
Only when he tried to disobey the pointing of 
the compass, he was forced back to obedience. 

It galled him, but there was nothing he could 
do. It was terrible to think of living out his life 
as host for a parasitic intelligence. It outraged 
his pride, his individuality. 

And yet, to have contact with a mind forty 



THE SORCERER OF RHIANNON 



41 



thousand years old ; to be taken to the Lost Islands 
of Rhiannon, the greatest archaeological mystery 
of Mars — 

He asked about the compass. Tobul answered 
absently. 

“It obeys a directional impulse from the vault.” 
And then, even more distantly: “The vault is 

still there, safe, in all this,” 

For a fleeting instant, through his own excite- 
ment at the mention of a vault, Brandon caught 
the unguarded sorrow of Tobul, looking through 
an alien’s eyes at the whithered mummy of his 
world. 

More and more, as he accustomed himself to his 
strange condition, Brandon's mind went back to 
the girl with blue hair, sitting proud in her 
. shackles across from Tobul. 

I “Who was she?” he asked. 

! The leashed fury of Tobul’s answer startled 
^ him. 

“The most dangerous creature on Mars. In a 
short time I should have destroyed her. But, 
somewhere, her mind lives as mine d.oes, and defies 
me — Brandon 1 Go on!” 

But Brandon stood still, with a curious chilly 
crinkle to his spine. 

“Sorry,” he said. “But the compass is shot.” 
TobuTs armor dropped, then, for an instant. 
Brandon felt what a lost planet must feel, torn 
from its sun. He never forgot it. 

“Kymra! Somehow, she has gone before me — 
Go on, Brandon!” 

Brandon shrugged and went. “May as well die 
walking as sitting,” he said. “It may not be 
Kymra of the Prira Cen, though. It may be just 
plain Dhu Kar of Venus, which is worse!” 

And then, just before the swift sunset, a flier 
came droning low over the ocher sand, swinging 
in wide circles, searching, 

Brandon danced like a madman on the top of a 
dune, obeying TobuTs command as well as his 
own urge. The flier came down. 

A tall, slender figxire in grease-stained flying 
togs leaped from the port and ran toward him in 
a cloud of dust. 

“Brandy!” yelled a clear voice, “Brandy, you 
idiot!” 

“Good Lord!” said Brandon. “Sylvia.” 

She swept into his arms, kissed him, cursed him, 
and shook him all at once. 

“Are you all right? What happened? I’ve been 
hunting for three days.” 

He held her off and grinned into her eager 
gamin face, framed in a perpetually tousled mop 
of curly black hair, set with eyes as sea-blue and 
adventurous as his own, and smudged slightly 
with grease. 

“Syl,” he said, “for once I’m glad to see you.” 
“Some day,” she grinned back, “you’ll realize 



my sterling worth and marry me. Then I shan’t 
have to fight mom about being a glamour girl, 
and pop about you being a bandit hunting the 
Eustace cash — ” 

“And I won’t be able to rob graves in peace — ” 

She was suddenly pressed against him, gripping 
his arms with painful fingers, making choking 
sounds at his shoulder. 

“Oh, Brandy,” she whispered, “I thought you 
were dead.” 

Tobul spoke harshly in Brandon’s mind. “Hurry. 
Get into the flier. We’ll try to find Rhiannon from 
the air. Hurry!” 

Brandon was apprehensive about that, because 
of the compass suddenly going dead. If Kymra 
of the Blue Hair was really there ahead of them, 
it meant trouble for Tobul, which meant trouble 
for Max Brandon, and, consequently, for Sylvia. 

He hesitated, and Sylvia said. 

“Brandy, you’d better give up hunting for the 
Lost Islands. Jarthur is hopping mad, because 
you know what relics from there would mean to 
Mars, and Dhu Kar — ” 

“Dhu Kar?” snapped Brandon. 

“He left the day after you did, as soon as he 
found out. And Jarthur went storming off with 
a bunch of policemen, to look for both of you. Of 
course,” she added hopefully, “they may have got 
lost in a sandstorm.” 

Brandon shook his head. “It’s a big desert, and 
they may not have been fools like me. I got too 
far away from my ship.” 

If it was Dhu Kar who had broken into the 
vault at Rhiannon, that meant trouble, too. The 
Venusian played for keeps. Brandon had skirm- 
ished with him before, and he knew. 

And yet, if he could help it, he wasn’t going to 
let that semihuman pirate from the Venusian coal 
swamps steal Rhiannon from him. 

He stood there, thinking these things, his profile 
hawk-clear with the wide-winged bird glittering 
above it, the red sunlight caught in his fair beard 
and shaggy hair, looking rather like a viking. 

And Sylvia Eustace, with a curiously puzzled 
look in her blue eyes, took the ring from Brandon’s 
finger and put it on her own. Then she said 
calmly: 

“Come on. Brandy. We’re going to Rhiannon.” 

He followed her, not noticing the ring. Tobul, 
grim and silent inside him, seeing only through 
his eyes, knew nothing of it, either. 

The flier was small, fast, lovingly worked over 
and expertly handled. Sylvia went directly to 
the controls, 

Brandon scowled, trying to plot the most likely 
course, combining his own conjectures of the posi- 
tion of the Lost Islands with the way shown by 
TobuTs compass. 

Sylvia sent the ship hurtling upward. When 





42 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



he started to speak, she cut him short. 

“I think I know the way.” 

He stared at her. “Nobody does. It’s all guess- 
work.” 

“Well,” she snapped, “can’t I guess, too?” 

He shrugged and sat back in the padded seat. 
Sylvia’s tall, boyish form, the despair of her 
society-loving mother, hunched over the controls. 
The flier shivered with the thrust of power from 
the rockets, and the thin, cold air screamed along 
the hull. 

Sylvia always flew fast, but there was a tense- 
ness about her now that was unlike her. 

“We can’t do much looking at this pace,” he 
said mildly. 

“I tell you, I’ve studied up on it and I know the 
way !” There was an imperious bugle note in her 
voice that startled him. 

Then she glanced at him. Just for an instant 
her eyes iVere puzzled and frightened and alto- 
gether Sylvia’s. Byt that was gone in a flash, 
and the ship rushed on, racing the rising moons. 

In the third hour before dawn, with little 
Phobos rushing ahead of them and Diemos a ball 
of cold fire overhead, Brandon saw a shadow more 
solid than the shifting dunes. 

Sylvia put the ship down. “We’re there,” she 
said. Then she laughed and shook him by the 
shoulders, and her blue eyes sparkled. 

“Think of it. Brandy! The Lost Islands. And 
we’ll see them together!” 

“Yes,” said Brandon, and the lines of his scarred 
brown face were deeper. He was thinking: 
“Funny she knew the way.” There came before 
him suddenly the picture of a reckless, vital face 
set with unconquerable golden eyes, and hair like 
a living waterfall. 

Tobul said softly: “I see what is in your mind. 
Kymra may have taken her, as I took you. I dare 
take no chances. Kill her.” 

“No!” 

Sylvia looked at him, startled. He gripped his 
seat with corded hands, and argued desperately. 

“It wouldn’t do any good ! If Kymra is in Syl- 
via, she’d only go back into — ^wherever she was 
before.” 

“Into some inanimate thing, Brandon. Perhaps 
in that state she could be forced — She would be 
helpless to move, as we both were in the ship. 
The cohesive frequencies of a disembodied in- 
telligence undergo a violent change under solar 
bombardment, unless protected by some denser 
matter.” 

“I won’t!” whispered Brandon. 

He clung to the seat, fighting the inexorable 
command of Tobul’s mind. He looked at Sylvia’s 
eager, vital face, and his heartstrings knotted in 
him like the straining muscles of his body. 

It was futile. Slowly he drew the small needle 
gun he always carried and slid the clip of poisoned 



needles into place. He raised it and aimed, at the 
girl who neither moved nor spoke. 

He fired. 

The needles vanished in midair with little bright 
spurts of flame. And Sylvia laughed. 

“Tobul,” she said, and the ringing bugle note 
that was not Sylvia’s was in her voice again. “Not 
that easily, Tobul! I’ll fight you, just as I fought 
in the old days, to the last ditch!” 

As though of its own volition, Brandon’s voice 
came, gentle and strange to his ears, with a feel 
of barbaric iron under the velvet. 

“That vault is all that is left to me of Mars, 
Kymra. It is mine by right of conquest and the 
blood my people shed.” 

“Barbarian!” Sylvia tossed her head like a war 
horse scenting battle. “What is in that vault is 
mine by right of having built it, and the blood my 
people shed defending it! The secret of the things 
you stole from us lies locked in my brain. The 
things of your own borrowed civilization you 
shall not have, either. 

“This dusty shell is still Mars, and though my 
race is dead, its people are still mine. I’ll not 
have them misruled by a dog of a nomad, with only 
four centuries of borrowed culture behind him!” 

Brandon felt a blind stab of rage through 
Tobul’s guard, and some of the velvet sloughed 
away from the iron ring in his voice. 

“Borrowed or not, I have the knowledge. The 
need to rule is as strong in me as it is in you, 
woman of the Prira Cen! 

“Your people were soft with age and culture. 
You conquered us, yes, because you knew more. 
But our blood was strong. We took what we 
wanted and used it against you, and we were not 
bound by scruples about blood-letting! 

“I’m beginning to find myself again. From what 
I have taken from this man’s mind, I see that Mars 
needs new rule, new strength, the knowledge that 
I can give it. Mars can live again. But in my 
way, Kymra! The way of strength and man- 
hood.” 

“The way of stupid, blundering beasts,” said 
Sylvia, her voice deep with some powerful emo- 
tion. “You slaughtered the Prira Cen, the 
kindliest, wisest, gentlest race on Mars, because 
you were jealous of our knowledge. You called 
it ‘foreign domination,’ though we never killed a 
man of your people, and did you more good in 
ten years than you yourselves could have done 
in a century. 

“Because we kept our race pure, you were 
jealous of us. Because we kept the secret of 
our one deadly weapon, you feared us, though we 
did it for your own protection.” 

“We crushed you without it,” said Tobul. 

“Only because we waited, not wanting to de- 




THE SORCERER OF RHIANNON 



43 



stroy you, and were betrayed. You were taking 
me to Rhiannon in chains, Tobul, but I tell you 
that no torture you could devise could have forced 
me to tell the secret of that weapon. Nor,” she 
added with deliberate malice, “another secret, 
which you would like now, but cannot have.” 

Tobul' did not answer her. Silently in Bran- 
don’s mind he said, “Take the small tube from 
your right-hand pocket.” 

The vise-grip of Tobul’s will on his made even 
a pretense of resistance impossible. Brandon 
dropped the useless needle gun and did as he was 
told. 

“She has nothing but the power of her mind,” 
murmured Tobul. “She can’t fight the strength 
of the projector long. Fire, Brandon!” 

With some foreign knowledge, he pressed a 
■^stud. A faint beam of light leaped out, splatter- 
ing in blazing incandescence against the barrier of 
force Kymra had built around Sylvia’s body. 

It burned and blazed, and the force wall held 
stubbornly, and Sylvia’s blue eyes stared at him 
through the fire. 

“You, too. Brandy?” she said, and now the voice 
was her own. “She made me understand, all in a 
flash. She can’t hold out long. It’s all so mad! 
Brandy, she’s weakening. Brandy, can’t you do 
something !” 

He couldn’t, though the sweat of agony needled 
his face. Out of some dim distance he sensed a 
growing heat and glare and thought it was from 
the clashing energies before him, until he realized 
it was in the wrong direction. 

The stern plates of the cabin were glowing 
i^erry-red. 

Somehow he found his voice. “The fuel tanks!” 
he yelled. “Got to get out. Somebody’s got a 
heat beam on us.” 

Miraculously, those two warring intelligences 
understood. The blazing battle of force broke 
off. The hull plates paled — 

They ran. With all their strength they leaped 
through the port and pelted over the desert, trail- 
ing crazy shadows from the double moons. 



Light gravity and long legs took them barely 
out of danger. Brandon threw Sylvia flat just as 
the tanks let go. A thundering, howling wind 
swept over them with a solid wall of dust, and a 
vast flame pillared up into the sky. 

For an incredibly long moment it painted every 
detail of the scene in wicked crimson — the gaunt, 
worn shell of a volcanic cone dead and buried for 
unnumbered centuries and bared capriciously now 
by the restless sand, a few Cyclopean blocks of 
Terellan marble cut to shapelss lumps by the 
passing years, tiunbled about a gaping hole. 

Directly in front of the hole was a big, fast, 
convertible spaceship. From it had come the heat 
beam. 

“Dhu Kar,” said Brandon, coughing dust. 
“Why does this Dhu Kar wish to kill you?” 
asked Tobul. 

“For the same reasons I’d like to kill him,” re- 
turned Brandon grimly. “Except that he’s a van- 
dal and a swine, and I’m a very charming fellow. 
Wait a bit. You’ll see.” 

He got up, and Sylvia, as usual, scrambled up 
before he could help her. Her face was pale and 
a little frightened, but her blue eyes danced. 

“I’ve always wanted real adventure,” she said, 
with a shaky little laugh. “I’m getting it!” 

They went toward the spaceship. And up out 
of the black pit, looking like a misshapen demon 
in the light of the double moons, came a squat 
shape bearing a burden — a radio-controlled robot 
carrier. 

Brandon felt the tendrils of Tobul’s mind reach- 
ing out to search the mind of the man who blocked 
his way to the vault. 

“He’s looting my vault,” whispered Tobul. “My 
vault, built and sealed against time forty thousand 
years ago. This outland dog !” 

“And what he can’t carry away he’ll destroy, 
partly to cover his tracks, mostly to keep anyone 
else from profiting.” Brandon’s tawny head came 
up. “Let me handle Dhu Kar myself,” 

“I can’t afford to risk your body, Brandon.” 
Brandon said angrily: “Look here, Tobul — ” 

The iron hand of Tobul’s will closed on his 









44 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



mind. He shrugged, and went on in silence, Syl- 
via’s firm shoulder close to his. 

Dhu Kar o£ Venus came out of the air lock of 
his ship. 

He loomed hugely in the shifting light. The 
fish-belly white of his face and hands gleamed 
sharply out of the dark furs he wore against the 
Martian chill. He was bareheaded, according to 
the custom of his people, his snowy hair intri- 
cately coiled. 

He held a needle gun in his hand, and his eyes 
were cold little chips of moonlight in his broad 
white face. 

“Didn’t know you had a woman aboard, Bran- 
don,’’ he said. His voice was harsh and slurring. 
“Yes, I recognize you. Miss Eustace. I’m glad 
you weren’t harmed.” 

“He’ll be happy to take you home, darling, for 
a small consideration. Say a million credits or so.” 

Brandon was advancing slowly, poised on the 
balls of his feet. Dhu Kar grinned. 

“How right you are, Brandon. For once you’re 
bringing me business instead of getting it away. 
But you can relax, Brandon. You won’t have to 
worry about it.” 

He raised his gun slightly. Sylvia cried out and 
made a move toward Brandon. The gun hissed 
softly. 

The needles splattered harmlessly against a 
wall of force, just as Brandon’s had done back 
in the ship. And Sylvia Eustace turned and ran. 

“I’m not doing this. Brandy,” she yelled, her 
long legs flashing through the dust. “Are you all 
right?” 

“All right!” he yelled back, and rushed after 
her, impelled by Tobul’s furious command to get 
to the vault tunnel first. 

Dhu Kar was staring from his gun to the run- 
ning man in open-mouthed amazement. Then his 
jaw shut hard. The girl didn’t matter — he could 
catch her. But Brandon — 

If something was wrong with his gun, he’d try 
something else. He fumbled in a capacious pocket, 
and his powerful arm flexed. 

The gas capsule burst just at Brandon’s feet. 
Tobul, concentrating every effort on catching 
Kymra, was caught off guard. Before he could 
stop himself, Brandon had breathed enough of it 
to drop him dared in the sand. 

He floundered away to windward, and realized 
that Tobul, associated as he was with Brandon’s 
physical medium, was momentarily affected, too. 

Sylvia’s flying form vanished into the pit mouth. 
Dhu Kar laughed and ran toward Brandon, very 
light and swift for such a big man. 

Brandon got to his feet and stood swaying, lost 
in a roaring mist, his hands raised blindly, waiting. 

A pair of vast white hands came out of the 
darkness toward his throat. He caught them. He 



fought to hold them off, but his sinews were water. 

The hands got closer. There was a face behind 
them now, broad and pale and contentedly smiling. 
Brandon’s white teeth showed through his tawny 
beard. He gulped the clean desert air and 
scourged his lagging strength into his arms, to 
hold those hands away. 

But the stuff he’d breathed sent a black tide 
swirling through his brain. The hands and the 
smiling face were drowned in it. 

The wide-winged bird on his circlet gleamed in 
the cold light of Diemos; the lines of his scarred, 
handsome face were deep and strong. He dropped 
Dhu Kar’s wrists. 

The last desperate backlash of his strength went 
into his forward surge, the thrust of his hands to 
Dhu Kar’s throat. 

The Venusian laughed and flung him off. Bran- 
don crumpled on the sand, and looked up at death. 
He was grinning, the reckless grin that women 
sighed at on the televisor screens. 

Some little mocking imp in his blacked-out 
brain whispered: “No audience. Brandy! You 

can quit.” 

But he didn’t. And death came down in two 
white hands. 

And vanished, in a sudden, coruscating puff of 
light. 

Tobul’s voice spoke, through the stifling dark- 
ness in his mind. The velvet was all gone from it 
now. It was clean, barbaric steel. 

"I was affected only for an instant. I could 
have saved you this. But Kymra was gone then, 
and I wanted to see how men fight today. 

“That circlet you wear was the crown of my 
fathers, when they were nomads living on raided 
herds and stolen grain. Keep it, Brandon. And 
believe me when I say I regret having to use your 
body. I shall try not to do it violence.” 

Brandon felt a tingling fire sweep through him, 
and quite suddenly the effects of the gas were 
gone. Some vibration Tobul freed, stimulating 
the natural processes of his body to instantaneous 
reaction. He got up. 

“Tobul,” he said, “did you say that Kymra knew 
the secret of building a body for you?” 

“Yes. But there is no way now of forcing her 
to do it. The girl fights well, for all she’s a Blue 
Hair.” 

“I’ll find a way,” said Brandon. 

Tobul’s voice came deep and strong in his brain. 

“I admire you, Brandon. I wish to help you all 
I can. But this fight is between Kymra and me. 
We are of opposing races, opposing creeds. The 
will, the actual need to rule is inherent in both of 
us, as the need to breathe is in you. Not the will 
merely for power, but for the guidance of millions 
of people to what we believe is a better way of life. 





THE SORCERER OF RHIANNON 



45 



“We have dififerent ways, Kyrara and I. There 
is not room on Mars for both of them. 

“We will go, Brandon. Down into the vault. 
Kymra is there ahead of me, but I still have some 
powers. One of us will not come out.” 

Brandon went, down into the Stygian shadow 
of the tunnel. Somewhere ahead was Sylvia, and 
Kymra of the Prira Cen, and the powerful things 
in the vault he could only guess at. 

Behind him, outside, was sleeping Mars, re- 
signed to the slow advance of death, living out its 
little days in peace. 

Behind him, too, long after the tunnel roof had 
killed all sound from beyond, four ships came 
flashing down through the moonlight, drawn by 
the great pyre of Sylvia’s flier. 

Jarthur, president of the Society for the Preser- 
vation of Martian Relics, looked out at the worn 
stump of the volcano — a tall, weedy man with sad 
Martian eyes and semimilitary authority. 

“These things are all we have left,” he said to 
an assistant. “These bones and shards of our 
history. And even these the outlanders strip 
from us.” 

He flipped open the intership radio connection. 

“Cover this area thoroughly. Issue orders that 
everyone found here is to be arrested. If they 
resist, fire. Anaesthetic needles. No one is to be 
allowed to escape.” 

It was cold in the tunnel, and musty with the 
dead smell of time. It was dark, too, but Brandon 
had no trouble finding his way. The square pas- 
sageway, sheathed in metal of the same forgotten 
alloy as Tobul’s ship, ran straight ahead and down. 

Tobul explained it, answering Brandon’s ques- 
tion. 

“Those were troubled times. I knew that Rhian- 
non might be destroyed at any time. So I built 
this vault, sheathed in metal that will not corrode 
and is harder than the finest steel. It’s air-tight, 
and filled with a preservative gas — or was, before 
the Venusian broke in. 

“In it I had placed the siun of our knowledge, 
science and arts and pleasures, and with them the 
two secrets we took from the Prira Cen but could 
not use — the machine of regeneration and the 
weapon. 

“They're still here, waiting. They mean the 
rule of Mars.” 

Presently Brandon came to massive metal doors 
that barred his way. The controls were locked 
from the inside. Tobul said: 

“^he projector, Brandon. The same one.” 

He pressed the stud. The faint beam of light 
focused on the door. The metal glowed, wavered, 
and crumbled away into fine powder. 

“It upsets molecular cohesion, reducing the 
metal to fine particles of its original elements,” 
Tobul explained. 



Brandon shuddered, thinking what would have 
happened to Sylvia. The beam ate and ate into 
the door, crumbling a hole around the massive 
controls. 

It went through nearly a solid foot of metal, 
and went dead. 

“Age,” snarled Tobul. “And all this time, 
Kymra — ” He broke off. “Put your hands in the 
hole, Brandon.” 

He X)beyed, remembering the cabin door on the 
ship and wondering if he’d be destroyed by 
Kymra’s secret weapon as soon as he entered, or 
whether he’d live long enough to say good-by to 
Sylvia. 

The weakened metal went through, under the 
power impulse from TobuTs brain. The massive 
valves swung back — 

Brandon stood frozen on the threshold. 

The vault stretched away into gleaming dis- 
tances filled with machines, with racks of metal 
scrolls and objects of a million shapes and sizes. 
All the life and learning of ancient Mars, the 
scientific powers of the Sorcerers of Rhiannon, 
preserved by the foresight of one man. 

But it wasn’t that sight, tremendous as it was, 
that set the blood hammering into Brandon’s 
throat and wrists. 

Directly across from the door, as though 
brought in just before it was closed, was a huge 
glass cabinet set in an intricate web of coils. 
These shimmered in a halo of light, at once sub- 
dued and fierce. 

Beneath the cabinet were several self-sealing 
metal containers. One the floor of it, inside, were 
trays and bowls of chemicals. 

Above these, in the very center of the soft, deep 
glow, a shimmering thing stood, already vaguely 
formulated. 

IVitch fires danced over the chemicals, whirling 
upward in a spiral of incandescence. As though 
painted by a rapid brush, line and color took 
shape — 

The fires died down, the glass door opened, and 
a girl stepped out. 

A tall, long-limbed girl, naked as the moon and 
as white. She moved with a vital grace, and her 
eyes were like bits of living gold, proud, un- 
conquerable, meeting Brandon’s own. 

And her hair was blue, rippling down over her 
shoulders like the curl of a living wave over foam- 
white coral. 

Brandon heard a long, quivering sigh through 
his mind, and Tobul said: 

“Kymra.” 

The girl nodded and turned to a curious thing 
raised on a metal tripod. It seemed to be mainly 
a crystal prism forming the core of a helix, which 
was of some material midway between crystal and 
metal — partially transparent, and made up of 




46 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



countless intricate facets. 

The helix broke at its lower end into a score of 
shining strands which fanned out into a circle. 

Sylvia Eustace spoke suddenly from where she 
stood, at one side of Kymra and a little behind her. 

“What are you going to do?” 

Kymra’s voice was very grave when she an- 
swered. Her golden eyes watched Brandon with 
somber regret. 

“I am going to kill,” she said quietly. 

Her clear, muted voice rang softly from the 
metal vault, heavy with regret. 

“For the first time one of the Prira Cen is going 
to take life willfully. I’m sorry, Max Brandon, 
that you must be the innocent victim — doubly 
sorry because of what I have read in this girl’s 
mind. 

“But you — and I — are less important than 
Mars.” 

Tobul, speaking aloud through Brandon’s 
throat, said harshly: “So you have had to come 

to my way at last.” 

She shook her head, that glorious shining hair 
like the forgotten sea that had lapped this island. 

“No, Tobul. Because I take no pride in it, only 
sorrow. If my people had seen in time that they 
must deal with your barbarians as they would with 
a horde of wild beasts, humanely but firmly — ” 
Her v/hite shoulders shimmered through the 
shadowy blue. 

“But they didn’t,” said Tobul, and his voice 
held a bitter satisfaction. “You’ll be all alone, 
Kymra, in an alien world.” 

“No. You’re not the only one who looked 
ahead, Tobul! My seven wisest councilors took 
refuge in sensitized stones, which you brought 
here to this vault. They knew that I would live, 
as they do. It was the thought-impulses of their 
minds that led me here, after Dhu Kar broke your 
sending mechanism moving it. 

“Their atomic patterns are inherent in the fre- 
quencies of their consciousness. That’s the secret 
of building bodies, Tobul. Given the conscious- 
ness and the necessary chemicals, that machine can 
create an identical replica, as you see in me. 

“Sylvia, my dear,” she added gently, “it will be 
quite painless. If I had any other sure weapon 
to use against Tobul’s strength, I would, and then 
rebuild Brandon’s body. But this force projects 
the consciousness into some unknown dimension, 
just as solar rays will. It cannot be recalled.” 

Her hands dropped out of sight below the prism. 
Brandon could see the ripple of firm muscles along 
her arms as she went through some complicated 
operation. 

“Good-by, Tobul,” she said softly. “Strange 
that we must end like this, in a world so different 
from the one we knew.” 

The prism began to glow with some queer per- 



version of light that seemed rather luminous 
darkness. It ran along the facets of the helix, 
faster and faster, stranger, darker, more dazzling. 

Brandon felt every drop of blood in him stop 
for a second, and then race on again, with the 
swirl of that mad, black luminosity. A cold terror 
caught him, a thing that hadn’t come at all when 
Dhu Kar’s hands were at his throat. 

He felt Tobul’s being surge within him, fierce 
and rebellious and bitter. Not afraid, much. Only 
ragingly sad at his defeat, and the thought of his 
people being ruled by Kymra of the Prira Cen, 

“Negative energy,” said Kymra’s voice, ringing 
through the great vaulted rooms like a muted 
bugle. “It taps the power of the galactic wheel 
itself, turning against the cohesive force of space. 
Energy so close to the primal warp of creation 
that it needs only the slightest .charge to push it 
over into the negative — the opposite balance that 
everything possesses.” 

The grave, sad voice beat against Brandon’s ears. 

“There is no defense against it, Tobul. All your 
force screens and projectors are worse than use- 
less. They attract now, instead of repelling. Do 
you wonder we kept this weapon secret?” 

The little threads of blackness spiraled out into 
a cone, and grew. 

Brandon’s heart thundered in his throat. The 
mocking devil in his brain laughed because the 
reckless grin was on his lips, playing to the audi- 
ence — Sylvia’s stricken eyes. 

He was sorry for Sylvia. She’d be alone now, 
in an alien world of wealth and decorum, that 
only he could have taken her out of. 

Alone, in an alien world — 

Brandon swallowed his heart, A sudden, des- 
perate hope flared in him. Useless, but he had to 
try. The thing that had driven him through the 
desert made him try. 

He started to cry out, “Kymra!” And Tobul’s 
will clamped his tongue to silence. 

“I will not beg for life,” he said. 

Things happened then, all at once, Sylvia made 
a long-legged leap forward, into the path of that 
blackness that ribboned and twisted out from the 
helix. In a second it would have touched her. 
But Brandon, moving instinctively, so that Tobul 
had no time to catch his conscious thought and 
block it, flung himself against her. 

She went sprawling over out of harm’s way. 
Kymra caught her breath sharply and started to 
move the projector to a new focus. And Brandon, 
looking up, cried suddenly: 

“Jarthur!” 

He stood there, the tall, thin Martian with the 
sad eyes. He had a needle gun in his hand, and 
six or seven black-clad policemen just behind him. 

He stared, momentarily stunned, at the vault and 
Kymra, with the blue hair cascading over her 
naked shoulders. 





THE SORCERER OF RHIANNON 



47 



Kymra made a sharp movement. The dark light 
in the prism changed. The black cone unraveled 
itself, back into the helix. Brandon’s heart gave 
a wild shudder of relief, Kymra was reluctant to 
take innocent lives. 

He scrambled, up, sensing Tobul’s dangerous 
alertness. Jarthur, forcing himself to steadiness 
in spite of his amazement, said; 

“Max Brandon, you’re imder arrest.’’ 

Tobul acted with the swiftness of his barbarian 
ancestors. With anaesthetic needles splattering 
in flames from his force shield, he charged into 
the middle of Jarthur’s group. 

The shock of Brandon’s immunity demoralized 
them. Tobul’s mind put forth tendrils of iron 

force. 

“Surround me,” he said, “Walk forward.” 

Brandon saw the look in Jarthur’s eyes, midway 
between nightmare and reluctant acceptance of in- 
sanity. Then he obeyed. Tobul moved forward, 
surrounded by a living shield. 

Kymra stood irresolute behind the projector, 
reluctant even then to destroy more of her people. 
And then Sylvia moved. 

She uncoiled from the floor with every ounce 
of her lithe strength, hurtling into Kymra. 
Kymra’s mental force shield must have been mo- 
mentarily dispersed by the shock of Jarthur’s en- 
trance and TobuTs sudden maneuver. 

Sylvia crashed into her, knocking her away from 
the projector. She yelled, “Brandy! Do some- 
thing!” But it was Tobul who flung away his 
unwilling protectors and gained the control board 
behind the projector. 

Kymra rose, dignified and beautiful even then, 
standing beside the regenerator. 

“It’s no use, Tobul,” she said. “You can’t use it.” 

Brandon heard his voice say softly: 

“You forgot the girl. She was where she could 
see your hands — and she didn’t blank her mind to 
what she saw.” 



Tobul’s hands moved over the intricate controls. 
Almost as an afterthought, he said to Jarthur, 
through Brandon’s mouth : 

“You are no longer needed. Go.” 

Jarthur’s sad eyes became furious. 

“See here, Brandon! I don’t know what kind 
of madness this is — probably some secret you’ve 
stolen from this place. But you’re through loot- 
ing. I’m going to send you to Phobos if I die 
doing it!” 

“You will,” said Tobul calmly, and shrugged. 
“Please yourself.” 

Kymra said steadily: “You don’t know how to 
control the force. Every living thing beyond its 
focus will be destroyed, and part of the inanimate 
substance, before you can stop it even by smashing 
the projector.” 

“You said yourself, Kymra, that Mars is more 
important than any of us.” 

The prism began to glow with its queer, black 
light. 

And Brandon said desperately: “Tobul!” 

“I’m sorry to cheat you of your body, Brandon, 
But this must be done.” 

Black rage suddenly took Brandon’s mind, 
drowning out even the flashes of Jarthur’s needles 
dying against the force screen. 

“You fool !” he snarled. “Can’t you see that the 
world has changed? The things you’re fighting 
over don’t exist any more!” 

“Silence, Brandon!” 

The black threads were weaving themselves 
again around the focus of the projector, twisting 
out toward Kymra of the Prira Cen. In a few 
seconds they’d blast her out of existence, and the 
regenerator with her — and Brandon’s only chance 
to get rid of Tobul and be a normal man again. 

He could foresee Tobul’s mind moving to si- 
lence his own. His hands were free from the 
projector now. 

With a characteristic flourish, he ripped the 






48 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



circlet from his head and held it up. 

“By this crown, Tobul, I’ve earned the right to 
speak!” 

The mocking imp in Brandon’s brain whispered : 
“Every inch the hero!” And behind it he could 
feel the struggle in Tobul’s mind. 

It seemed an eternity before the quiet, curt 
answer came. “Speak, then.” 

Brandon spoke, aloud, to Kymra as much as to 
Tobul. 

“You say that Mars is your first consideration, 
and I believe you. But you still live in the past. 
Can’t you see that the war between Tobul’s peo- 
ple and the Prira Cen is as dead as the dust of 
your bodies? 

“What right has either of you to rob Mars of 
the other? The two of you, working together as 
balancing forces instead of enemies, could make 
Mars the greatest planet in the System. You 
could give her water again, and the air she’s 
losing, the courage and will to live that she’s lost. 

“You could bring her the knowledge of the Lost 
Islands and the Prira Cen — complete, not in half- 
forgotten fragments. Kymra’s councilors are in- 
valuable to all humanity. What right have you, 
Tobul, to destroy them? 

“The world has changed. With each of you, 
the other is the only link to the world you knew. 
There can be no real companionship for you with 
anyone else. 

“What human would mate with someone forty 
thousand years old? Yet you’re both young. 
Think of that, for a minute. To live for well-nigh 
endless years with no one to speak to, no under- 
standing, only awe and fear and perhaps hate? 

“For Heaven’s sake, Tobul, if you’re the brave 
man, the great man you believe yourself to be, 
face this out and see the truth in it!” 

The little black threads wove out and out, and 
Kymra’s eyes were burning gold, proud and steady. 

Sylvia spoke up furiously. “He’s right, you 
know. You’re just fooling yourselves. You don’t 
care who you hurt as long as you don’t have to 
share your power!” 

“That’s not true,” said Kymra gently. And 
Tobul echoed: “No — ” 

Brandon felt Tobul’s mind gather into itself, 
thinking. For an instant his body was free from 
compulsion. He raised his foot and sent the pro- 
jector crashing to the floor. 

It shattered, became meaningless, shining frag- 
ments. But the fragments lay about a gaping hole, 
where the little black worms had gnawed. 

Jarthur had stopped the useless firing. His eyes 
were dazed, bewildered, but his back was stub- 
bornly straight. 

“I don’t understand,” he said. “I may be only 
playing into your hands, Brandon. But if there 



are really beings from the past who can help Mars 
to live again — I beg them both to do it.” 

Tobul whispered in Brandon’s mind; “What 
is all this to you, Brandon? You, an Earthman.” 
He shrugged. “I’m a human being, too. And I 
think I’m seeing what I’ve always wanted to see. 
The thing that, subconsciously, has drawn me to 
hunt up the old, forgotten places. I’m seeing the 
past — the past that is as real as the future or the 
present — come into its own.” 

“You’re a looter, Brandon,” said Jarthur harshly. 
“But I’ve never destroyed anything. Oh, I’m 
not excusing myself. And I’m beginning to see 
the error of my ways.” 

“Perhaps,” said Tobul shrewdly, “because this 
looks more exciting?” 

Kymra said softly: “Your barbarian ancestors, 
Tobul, prided themselves on being honest with 
themselves. Let us be.” 

Brandon could feel the struggle that went on 
in Tobul’s mind. It seemed to him that the whole 
universe had stopped breathing, waiting. And at 
last, reluctantly, Tobul said: 

“Brandon speaks the truth. Much as I hate it, 
it is the truth. Blast you, Brandon, why did I 
give you my crown to wear?” 

“You may have it back.” Brandon was suddenly 
weak, almost hysterical with relief. “I don’t want 
much — ” 

“Much?” 

“Well, my body has served as your draft animal. 
I’m giving up a profitable career of grave robbing 
in order to act as your ambassador, your link be- 
tween the past and the present — ” 

“Ambassador!” said Kymra, turning her im- 
perious, golden gaze on him. “Who has asked 
you?” 

“Hm-m-m,” said Brandon. “You’ll need a per- 
sonal diplomat, too. Can’t expect love and kisses 
all in one minute, after forty thousand years — 
Know anybody who could do it better?” 

Kymra looked at Brandon’s handsome head 
cocked back, with the wide-winged bird glittering 
above it and his white teeth gleaming. She 
laughed. 

“You’re mad, as well as insolent. But — 

Tobul?” 

“Why not? Kymra, you will restore my body, 
of course. But before I leave this Brandon, there 
is something I want to do — to tame him.” 
Brandon’s heart gave a swift, little jerk of ap- 
prehension. He stammered: “What — ” But the 
iron grip of Tobul’s will was on his mind. 

He found himself walking over to Sylvia. He 
found himself taking her in his arms, and whis- 
pering something, and then — 

“So that,” said Tobul, “is how it’s done now. 
The world hasn’t changed so much !” 



THE END. 





49 




THE REBELS 



By Kurt von Rachen 



# The Kilkenny Cats were still determined to do away with Colonel Gailbraith. 
He annoyed them consistently and severely— by saving their stupid necks! This 
time they plotted to maroon him for life — a short life! — on a planetful of enemies! 



Illustrated by Rogers 



A sudden shadow fell across the grassless street 
of the Mirionite city as though a tower had been 
built all in an instant. 

Vicky Stalton gave her little kepi a jerk over 
one eye and turned with caustic remark upon her 



lips for Mirionites, in their gigantic legsomeness, 
often absent-mindedly jostled one or another of 
the small beings who had come there as outcasts 
from their own world. 

The remark went unuttered, for this gangling 




50 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



colossus of a citizen was edging backward in a 
wary crouch, electrostick in hand and attention 
upon something which Vicky, in her less lofty 
position, could not see. The quiet of the town 
was jaggedly torn apart by the crashing roar of 
a flame gun. It behooved Vicky to forget any 
annoyance with this bulk which caved into itself 
and turned into a mass of singed hair and baked 
flesh, for it was tottering in her direction. 

Swiftly she pressed back into a circle of a pri- 
vate home. The ground shivered as the great 
being struck. The bounding electrostick nearly 
clipped Vicky in passing. 

There came a thunder of running feet and out- 
raged voices and, looking across the domes of 
the Mirionite houses, Vicky could see smoke ris- 
ing and long-eared heads bobbing but no more. 
The bedlam was cleft, then, by a string of honest 
longshore curses and the eared heads closed in 
and dropped out of sight. 

Between two glass domes Vicky could see a 
section of the next street, and into this short ex- 
panse of rough fiber a thing skidded and came to 
rest. It was charred by many arcs and would 
have been unidentifiable altogether had it not 
had a plastiron belt and holster, still bright, about 
it. An instant later a Mirionite bulked over it 
and kicked it angrily. 

Vicky’s legs trembled until she did not think 
she could walk. But she did walk, with steadi- 
ness, and her course lay close beside the angry 
cluster of Mirionites — for there was no other way 
out of the circle into which she had been forced. 

She gave them a disdainful glance as she passed 
and they looked sourly at her. As soon as she 
was well beyond their sight she quickened step, 
turned into a narrowly curving street and came 
to a small glass dome which was isolated from the 
rest and nearly hidden in the jungle which had 
grown up about it. It was an abandoned Mirion- 
ite home, unprotected, as were habitable ones, by 
arc fences. 

At the top of a curving ramp a room spread 
itself out in tumbled disorder: three-dimensional 
space charts had slid until they were half on, half 
off a table; a brace of pistols in tarnished and 
worn holsters were hooked over a wall peg close 
by the bed; three glasses were upset in the mid- 
dle of a low table, crowning the litter of empty 
thermotins and food scraps ; a pair of heavy space 
boots were crumpled like mangled legs upon a 
chair; a cape was slumped upon the rug, its col- 
lar stained and smeared with rain and mud; a 
small metal box containing cubes about a centi- 
meter square was upset into a space helmet which 
topped the tangle contained by an open locker. 

Steve Gailbraith, unshaven, unkempt, was 
sprawled face downward upon the bed, arms flung 
out, booted feet jutting over the edge. 



He awakened very slowly to the hauling and 
pommeling to which he was subjected, opening 
and closing a parched mouth in an attempt to 
utter blasphemies against any intruder. Finally 
Vicky gave it up in favor of something more vio- 
lent. She marched to the sink, drew a pitcher of 
icy water and dumped the whole upon Steve’s 
head. 

Drenched, Steve sat up, mopping at his eyes 
and muttering incoherently. He saw Vicky and 
glowered at her from behind the cascades which 
poured down from his crown. 

“What’s the matter with you?” said Steve, 
grouchy with the early hour and a hangover. 
“Wake up!” demanded Vicky. 

“Why?” growled Steve and would have lain 
back again had she not swiftly begun to fill the 
pitcher anew. “All right. All right.” He stum- 
bled to the sink and tried to get himself in order 
and then, through the towel, snarled: “I’m going 
to get one of these reptiles they have and chain 
him at the bottom of the stairs. I’ll put juice in 
the banister. I’ll set a trap flame across this room.” 
“You were drunk,” said Vicky. 

“So I was drunk. So I had to do something to 
keep from going crazy in this damned place.” 
“You were drunk on dak,” said Vicky, pointing 
a finger at the small metal box and the white 
cubes in the locker. 

“So I was drunk on dak. Since when did you 
get yourself a license to lecture on temperance?” 
“You never drank much before.” 

“I was never put in the last end of creation for 
six months either. What am I supposed to do, 
go crazy just to satisfy you?” 

“When you first landed here you started to make 
plans of what to do with the tribute you connived 
to get out of the Mirionites. You were all on fire 
at the idea of constructing a small space fleet and 
attacking Earth, wiping out Fagar — ” 

“And so I’ve forgotten all about that, have I?” 
“You’ve even forgotten that Fagar exiled us 
all. You’ve forgotten you were an officer of the 
royal navy, what’s more important. And you’ve 
forgotten you were a man 1” 

He glared at her and filled a glass full of water. 
Into this he dropped one of the small white pills 
which would turn the water into a pint of taste- 
less white nectar. 

Vicky, the Torch of Liberty girl, whose example 
had led the Earth revolt to victory, had lost none 
of her flame and spunk for having been thrown 
out after the end was gained. Vicky was no aris- 
tocrat nor even one of the officer class, but one 
of those strangely beautiful and brilliant sports 
which sometimes appear out of the gutters and 
tenements to confound biologists and sociologists. 
With a savage hand she smashed the glass from 
Steve’s grasp. 

“Keep that up and you’ll be a drunken swine. 





THE REBELS 



51 



You’ve pulled us out of tough spots before and 
you’re going to do it again. Another Earthman 
was just killed in the town by Mirionites!” 

“So I am supposed to go out and shepherd the 
dear darlings,” said Steve. “Dave Blacker is al- 
ways yowling about being their leader. Let him 
lead. Besides, those devils of his have it coming. 
They try to take everything in sight. What 
thanks have I gotten for anything I’ve done? 
They leave me alone as though I had invisofever. 
To hell with Dave Blacker. To hell with Jean 
Mauchard. And right now, to hell with you!” 

“So you aren’t going to do anything about it?” 
“You are a very brilliant woman.” 

“You’re going to forget all about attacking 
Fagar and righting the wrongs he’s done us?” 
“Maybe I’ve already forgotten. Get out and 
leave me in peace!” 

Vicky looked at him ragefully. Steve Gail- 
braith, a man of courage and imagination, could 
sometimes be very trying. He had set out to cure 
himself of a heart broken by the actions of man 
and he had cured himself entirely too well. He 
had ascended now even above the plain of revenge. 
“You’re a fool,” said Vicky, 

“Get out,” said Steve. 

She lingered, trying to cull something from her 
training as a propagandist which would set this 
human hurricane into the action of which he was 
capable. 

“All right,” said Vicky, “Blacker, no longer 
restrained by any fear of you, is going to do his 
worst to these Mirionites. The Mirionites, no 
longer in awe of you, are going to murder the lot 
of us. And you’ll be all alone, Steve Gailbraith, 
on a very lonely planet.” 

“I’m cheering.” 

Vicky switched angrily at her half boots with 
a flamestick and then, with a sniff of disdain, 
turned on her heel and marched down the steps. 

To think that she could actually love that man, 
ever. Well, she hated him right now for a spine- 
less, drunken sot. Officer! Gentleman! Bah! 
He wouldn’t be picked by a space freighter’s press 
gang ! 

Traitorously her mind fell back to how he had 
kept Blacker from wiping out the Sons of Sci- 
ence, how Steve had plucked, single-handed, a 
war vessel from space to help their escape, how 
he had brought them down here and snatched 
them from the arcs of the Mirionites by strategy 
which was almost diabolical in its brassy daring. 
She wrenched her mind back to her rage and 
thereafter nursed it carefully. 

There was Steve, storing up the tribute he had 
extracted from the Mirionites and which was paid 
each month. He conjuring the myth of a mighty 
commander behind him, Steve had so far managed 
AST— 4B 



to keep things traveling in his own direction. 
But soon the Mirionites, tired of the insolence 
and depredations of the small beings who had 
descended upon them, would pierce that myth and 
slaughter them all ! 

She and Steve had been growing apart of late, 
as close together as they had been after landing 
here. For she cpuld have no S3nnpathy with this 
lethargic waiting, having already tasted of doom 
and feeling that waiting would only bring them 
death. Mildly, at first, she had sought to rouse 
him and then, when he neither reproved her nor, 
indeed, seemed to consider her opinion of any 
value whatever, subjecting her to man’s usual ar- 
rogance, she had begun to seek ways to stir him 
up. And now she knew that she had failed, and 
failure had a bitter, heartbroken flavor. 

She saw a party of Earthmen coming from out 
of the Mirionite city, bringing what was left of 
one of their number, Dave Blacker was with them 
and she fell into step beside him. 

Dave Blacker, one of the original instigators 
of the revolt which had put Fagar in power — a 
fact which made him dangerous to Fagar and 
which had caused his exile with all his three hun- 
dred shock-troop longshoremen — slogged along in 
angry silence beside the covered stretcher. In his 
teeth he had the ragged remnant of one of the 
cigars he had caused to be manufactured from 
plants found here. On his massive, dark head 
was a round, civilian hat. Despite the steaming 
heat of the day he wore a topcoat of loud hue, 
possibly to hide the almost vanished state of any 
other clothing. Around him walked his men, as 
ragged as he. 

“What happened?” said Vicky. 

Dave fixed her with a glare which he meant for 
the Mirionites. “No apology, nothin’. They said 
he stole a ring. To hell with what they said! I 
got a bellyful of their damned insolence!” 

“So have we all,” said Vicky. “What can we do 
about it?” 

“Do, hell! We can do plenty if we’ve got a 
mind. We got the Fuiy and even if she won’t 
ever fly again she’s got plenty of guns left.” 

“If anything is to be done at all,” said Vicky, 
“you are the one to do it.” 

This compliment, the first he had ever heard 
from Vicky Stalton, took Blacker between the 
eyes. She was a noted beauty Emd even the rigors 
of the long revolt had not dimmed the luster of 
her, not even the battered little kepi and tunic 
could hide her from desirous glances covertly 
cast. But Vicky Stalton was loved by Steve Gail- 
braith and that firebrand had a habit of produc- 
ing strange destinies out of the air. Men might 
be gasping for a smile from Vicky, but not so 
hard that they failed to see the awful and unpre- 
dictable shadow of Gailbraith towering behind her. 





52 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 




“Where’s Steve?” said Blacker. 

“Let’s forget Steve,” said Vicky, looking at 
Blacker with a certain look. “You spoke of 
plans?” 

“Hm-m-m,” said Blacker, with an oblique glance 
at her. 

“I’m no spy for Steve. God knows, Dave, he 
hasn’t the least interest in anything which hap- 
pens around here. A man of direct action may 
be able to accomplish much — but not Steve. Not 
now.” 

“Hm-m-m,” said Blacker. 

They walked then in silence across the shim- 
mering scorch of the landing field, approaching 



the decaying bulk of the Fury, A quiet crowd of 
Earth people awaited them and opened to let 
them through. 

“Who is it?” said Jean Mauchard, the scientist. 

“Svessner,” said Blacker. 

There was a scream and a young woman tore at 
the blanket on the stretcher before she could be 
stopped. She dropped senseless to the ground. 

The group went on past the Fury’s nose and to 
the little burial plot which had been robbed of 
the encroaching jungle. The sullen scrape of 
spades began to hollow Svessner’s last resting 
place. 

“Gotta do something,” growled Blacker. 

“You’re the man to do it,” said Vicky. 

“Hm-m-m,” said Blacker. 

A week later — nine and a half Earth days upon 
this planet — Vicky Stalton sought to escape the 
heat of the long, open walk to the landing field 
from the town by resorting to a jungle trail, 
winding along the ridge which backed the col- 
lection of Mirionite domes, for here it was at least 
shady. 

As she came near the reservoir she paused, 
thinking she heard human voices somewhere near, 
but noticing the brook which trickled into the 
hemisphere of placid, crystal water, attributed the 
sound to that and went on. Skirting the basin 
upon its smooth path, she parted a cluster of vines 
which had lately obstructed the way and was on 
the verge of stepping down the chiseled flight of 
stairs here when she beheld Steve. 

He was sitting in a small, ramshackle pavilion 
which, though it was protected by trees from the 
sun, yet commanded a view of the town below 
and the landing field. His tunic was open at the 
throat, a tunic to which clung, by precarious 
threads, battered flight colonel’s planets. His 
hair, stirred by the gentle wind, brushed his lean, 
aristocrat’s face. He looked tired and dejected. 

Sitting some three paces from him, on the step, 
was Brok. Since the day when they had retaken 
the Fury and Brok, charged by a petty officer for 
“revolutionary thought,” had been brought from 
the brig — a place he had never thought to leave 
save to attend his funeral — he had not been far 
from Steve. He was a huge being, as men go, a 
Negro with all the brooding sorrow of his race 
upon him. 

Brok was quoting, monotonously but in a low, 
pleasing voice, one of the hero poems from Frale’s 
great “Conquest of Space,” and Steve listlessly 
let the rolling phrases sweep by with the wind. 

A small stab of remorse pained in Vicky’s heart. 
Sometimes, when she had not seen Steve for days, 
just looking at him hurt. There was something 
so grand, so free about him, something so charm- 
ing in his ease and careless strength. And now 




THE REBELS 



53 



to see him patterned with shadow and light, half 
sleeping, half dreaming — 

“ — and the mighty swords of flame 
Carving out hot destiny 
From worlds enfettered all by cloud. 

To sing again with newborn joy 
That mankind was not decadent 
That furious sons from Earth’s unrest — ” 

Vicky sought to draw back, but her eyes were 
too much Steve’s and a vine caught her kepi and 
threw it down, like a challenger’s glove, to the 
floor of the pavilion. 

Steve started out of his reVerie and the soft 
clank of a holster flap was all there was to denote 
that Brok had not been training a flame gun upon 
the vines during all his quoting. 

Steve raised a hand to prevent Brok’s firing 
and, picking up the kepi, looked up into Vicky’s 
startled face. She put a better demeanor upon 
herself and walked somewhat insolently forward. 
She took the kepi with a jerk from Steve’s hand 
and tucked some of her rebellious curls under it. 
She wanted to go on down the path, but she lin- 
gered, not admitting the hope to herself that her 
desertion of Steve could be repaired. 

“My, my, my,” breathed Steve, saying, manlike, 
the wrong thing. “It seems that we are not the 
only ones who must be out prying and spying into 
lives. You may return now and report to your 
darling that Steve Gailbraith is still too bored to 
trouble himself with teapot hurricanes.” 

“Spying!” said Vicky. “So you have been spy- 
ing!” 

“The lady pales,” said Steve. “It becomes her. 
Can you still blush?” 

“I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of!” she 
stormed, stamping her boot so hard that the an- 
cient platform groaned in alarm. “Men are killed 
in the city every day. There is hell brewing, and 
yet you sit and listen to your servant croon 
poetry !” 

“Men have died before now for pilfering and 
men will die again,” said Steve. “Put a leash upon 
that lawless horde of Blacker’s devils and upon 
the plans of Jean Mauchard and you’ll have peace 
enough. But I made no reference to that.” 

“What are you insinuating?” 

“One does not have so far to look to see you 
parading with Dave Blacker. That mass of cor- 
rupt corpulence would, of course, have a distinct 
appeal for a guttersnipe.” 

The insult, delivered in a brittlely cold voice, 
was more than a slap. There was no sympathy, 
no hope in Steve’s half-lidded eyes, only bitter- 
ness and disgust. 

“You . . . you — ” she choked. “You rotten- 
mouthed scum! Perhaps you would be pleased 



to know that Dave Blacker and I are to be mar- 
ried!” 

A small patch of color stood on Steve’s high 
cheekbones in ghastly contrast to the pallor of his 
face. His throat cords grew taut. After a mo- 
ment he again had control. 

“Married, eh?” he said musingly. 

“Yes!” 

“Natural result of the meeting of two so much 
alike,” said Steve quietly. “A fool in the like- 
ness of a swine and a swine in the likeness of a 
fool.” 

She brought the limber length of her flame- 
stick across his jaw and, rigid with rage, stalked 
down the steps and out of sight in the jungle. 

Brok leaped up and, with a pad taken from the 
metal kit at his side, began to wipe the blood 
from Steve’s lips and throat. With a furious 
thrust Steve sent him spinning against the rail- 
ing, Brok half senseless from the blow. 

Steve sat back against the column glaring into 
nothingness, rapid pulse beats making his tem- 
ples and throat throb. 

For nearly an hour he did not change position 
or expression and the blood caked upon the col- 
lar of his tunic unnoticed. Brok crouched upon 
the step in troubled silence. 

The giant Negro might be able to quote end- 
lessly from the most learned pens of philosophy 
but this had nothing to do with the directness of 
his reasoning or its simplicity. 

“You like Miss Vicky. I shall go and kill Dave 
Blacker.” 

Savagely Steve turned upon him. “If there is 
any killing to do I can do it and don’t forget 
that. But why kill him? Why even think about 
him? You think I love her, do you? I hate her 
and I hope she rots! Let her go, do you under- 
stand? Let them both go! What do I care what 
they do? What do I care what — ” 

Suddenly his voice broke and he plunged his 
face into his hands as though to wipe away any 
memory of her. 

Gradually he calmed and his jaw grew firm. 
Carelessly he said: “The last line of that mag- 
nificent satire you were quoting was, ‘ — furious 
sons from Earth’s unrest.’ Go on.” 

Brok, pain in his eyes as he gazed at Gailbraith 
— for Brok knew the agony of jealousy for all his 
lowly state — went on with the hero poem. 

As Vicky Stalton entered the passageway to 
the wardroom of the Fury she heard an enthusi- 
astic cheer blast forth, and when it died, the vi- 
brant, uncouth bellow of Blacker continuing. 

Edging through the thick mob by the inner door 
of the air lock, Vicky looked across the smoke- 
choked and sweat-reeking interior to the long 
board where Blacker was abusing green cloth 
with an urgent fist. 





54 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



“ — and you thought it was brilliant and clever!” 
roared Blacker. “All Gailbraith did next was to 
lure down a war vessel and proceed to take it 
with our help! And did he need that help!” 

A cheer rolled out from the assembled long- 
shoremen and converted ex-Fagar crew members. 
Even a handful of the Sons of Science, once 
Blacker’s bitter foes, echoed the tumult. 

“We had to help him when he had gone that 
far,” cried Blacker. “But did we ask to come to 
this place?” 

“NO! NO!” shouted the crowd, completely for- 
getting that it had been Mauchard’s mutiny which 
had brought them hither and that Gailbraith had 
definitely saved their necks. 

“And are we expected to rot here forever?” 
cried Blacker. 

“NO!” 

“To rot here while Gailbraith accumulates trib- 
ute from this planet to use for his own ends? 
While we are set upon each and every day by 
Mirionites?” 

“NO! NO! NO!” 

“Are we to be held in check by a drunken sot 
when we can still make peace with Fagar?” 
“NO!” 

“There are thousands of bars of delinium here 
in this place. There are millions more in its 
mines. There are thousands of bolts of metal 
fabrics finer in weave than any to be found else- 
where in all the Empire of Space! And you do 
not think this will buy us welcome in our home- 
land?” 

“YES! YES! YES!” 

“And do we not yearn to go back to the green 
fields of our birth, to the blue waters of our planet, 
to the glorious mountains and valleys nowhere 
equaled in the Universe? Are we to abandon for- 
ever the cities where we are accepted as brothers?” 
“NO! NO!” 

“And are we to admit that we are less clever 
than Gailbraith? To admit that we cannot achieve 
a small coup of our own not more than on a par 
with what he has already done?” 

“NO!” 

“Then you all agree that I am to be wholly 
empowered to act for all of us in the negotiations 
with Fagar. All of you?” 

Pressed sailors, outcast scientists, beefy long- 
shoremen nearly made the old battleship’s hull 
disintegrate with their cheers. 

Dramatically Dave Blacker jabbed a frayed 
cigar in his mouth, clamped his hat upon his head 
and strutted from the room, followed by the tu- 
mult. Eight high henchmen dashed after him to 
attend a conference they knew would instantly 
be called. 

Vicky sought to catch Blacker’s attention in 
passing but she only received one of his winning 
leers before she was thrust back. The preven- 



tion of her following seemed intentional and, with 
a flash of resentment, she wrested free and stalked 
into her cabin. There she was glad that she had 
not followed Blacker, for she felt ill and nervous. 

And it was intentional that she had been 
blocked, for Blacker, before he shut the door 
upon the group he had assembled in the communi- 
cations room, made sure she was not present. 

Blacker swept, with a wave of his hand, the lot 
of them to chairs and then went roving about 
before the huge panels, growling in thought. Sud- 
denly he faced the henchmen. 

“Steve Gailbraith caused Fagar most of this 
trouble. Fagar would be very glad to get his 
hands on his late cohort. Any of you gents got 
any objections to something happening to Steve 
Gailbraith?” 

There was none, for it seems a characteristic 
of man that deep obligation is nearly always re- 
paid with deeper resentment. 

“You!” said Blacker, jabbing his cigar at the 
communications petty officer at the screen and 
dials. “You’ve kept an interbeam goin’ between 
here and Earth?” 

“Yessir,” said the petty officer. 

“O. K., buddy, ride it. I want Fagar.” 

The petty officer began to feed the thread which 
spanned the light-years and which he had hooked, 
outlaw fashion, into that of the unknowing Earth 
warship Victory which must be somewhere in this 
Galaxy. 

Into the cube of screen came the face of the 
duty officer in the navy department. For a mo- 
ment his face was disinterested, for he thought 
this a routine call. Then, as he saw a man with- 
out uniform in his own screen and back of him 
a heavy-built fellow strangely familiar, he leaned 
forward curiously. 

“This is Center. Who are you?” 

Blacker stepped to the board. “Dave Blacker. 
You’ve heard of me. I want Fagar and I want 
him right now. I got some news for him.” 

“I am sorry, we cannot — ” 

“Get me Fagar, bucko, and get him quick or 
he’ll have those gold stripes turned into black 
ones!” 

The officer’s face faded and a narrow and evil 
visage shimmered and then took form. It was a 
secretary in the palace. 

“You have business — BLACKER!” 

“Yeah, Dave Blacker, Ratpuss. Put Fagar in 
front of that thing.” 

“His excellency — ” 

“Get him!” snarled Blacker, “I got something 
to say to him that he’ll be interested in hearing!” 

Irresolutely the secretary stared into the room 
from the screen and then, leaving it on, swung 
his beam downward so that Blacker was looking 




THE REBELS 



55 



at the palace floor. This was a trick used by the 
dead emperor and it caused Blacker to emit a 
snort of laughter. In a moment the beam swept 
up a trifle, displaying boots, then knees, then tunic 
and a wide golden belt and finally the head and 
shoulders of Fagar, Dictator of All. 

The face was like pasty putty.and the eyes were 
small and as black as the coal Fagar had once 
mined. A short crop of greasy hair bristled up 
from a narrow brow. A huge but lipless mouth 
gave him the last appearance of cruelty. 

“Hello, Fagar,” said Blacker. “I’ve got some 
news.” 

“So it is Blacker,” said the powerful, brutal 
voice of Fagar. “I understand that your expedi- 
tion was not quite as successful as it might have 
been.” 

“From both our lights,” said Blacker. “But 
don’t get any idea that we messed things up. 
We’re going to turn over to you the guy who 
did. You remember Colonel Gailbraith?” 

“Oh, yes. An energetic young man.” 

“You remember him all right. How much de- 
linium is on his head?” 

“Two kilograms!” snapped Fagar. 

“So much?” said Blacker, impressed. “Well, 
we are going to collect that. Outside of the fact 
that old royal officers don’t appeal to us, we don’t 
like what he’s done with us. Listen, Fagar, we 
have eight thousand bars of delinium and mines 
with millions more. We have twenty-one thou- 
sand bolts of metal cloth finer than you have ever 
before seen. We have a whole planet to offer 
you. And we have Gailbraith.” 

“And what do you want in return?” said Fagar 
greedily. 

“Safe conduct for all of us and amnesty on 
Earth. I’ll disband any organization I headed 
and enter no more into politics. The Sons of 
Science give the same promise. We want to come 
home.” 

Fagar half-lidded his eyes. “I agree. What 
must I do?” 

“Send any ships of war you have in Canis — 
here to this planet. We will knock off the de- 
fenses for your lads and all they have to do is 
land, take possession and scoop up the loot.” 
“That is Mirionite, isn’t it?” said Fagar. 

“Yeah. The3r’re a pushover.” 

“Very well. Hold the wave.” 

Fagar vanished out of the screen but was back 
within ten minutes. “In ten days you will be vis- 
ited by the fleet there. I am looking forward to 
seeing you again.” 

“You’ll see us!” grinned Blacker. 

The screen died down and blanked. Blacker 
turned to his henchmen with a confident grin. 
“You see? It was as easy as that. And now we 
have just ten days to knock off the arc batteries 



around here. We’ll figure that complete tomor- 
row.” 

Blacker swaggered out of the communications 
room and down the ladder. A moment later he 
knocked on Vicky’s cabin. 

When she came forth she had veiled any re- 
sentment she felt, for she gave him a smile as he 
led her along the passageway to the galley. Here 
he poured them both cups of hot Mirionite tea. 

“Well?” said Vicky. 

“Well, it’s done,” said Blacker. “I got hold of 
Fagar and traded him this planet and the loot for 
our amnesties.” 

“You did?” she cried. 





56 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



“And within a month we’ll all be back on Earth, 
free people.” 

“What guarantee did you get?” 

“Why, his word, of course.” 

A shadow flicked over her eyes and she low- 
ered her head to drink. 

Blacker put a thick paw under her chin and 
lifted it up. “Well? How about a little kiss to 
celebrate?” 

“The bargain,” she smiled provocatively, very 
glad to draw away from that uncouth touch, “had 
to do with our being already on our way to 
Earth.” 

“Yeah, but—” 

“But,” said Vicky, “we are still here.” And 
setting down her cup she slid past his reach and 
out the door. 

Back in her cabin she stood in the center of the 
floor, arrested by a sketch of Steve she had done. 
This she had put away in a locker, but that locker 
door stood open and Steve was looking at her. 

A bitter smile distorted her mouth, “I thought 
you loved me. I thought all you needed was a 
little jealousy. Well, we’re on our way to Earth, 
do you hear? On our way to Earth!” And she 
slammed the locker shut with violence. Then, 
paradoxically, she threw herself on her bunk and 
wept. 

Many nights later, while three small comets 
paraded their subdued light across this plain and 
two small moons looked disinterestedly down, a 
long red gash of fury exploded just outside the 
wall of the Mirionite city. Instantly, in twenty 
different places, flame cartridges eagerly answered 
the signal, spraying destruction and alarm through 
the cluster of glowing domes which contained the 
huge and shaggy inhabitants. 

Brok awoke on the instant and pressed his face 
to the transparent wall and then, seeing nothing 
he could identify, loped up the ramp to wake 
Steve. 

But Steve was already awake, had been awake 
for tortured hours, and he met Brok midway. 
Steve was throwing two holsters and belts about 
his waist and angry outrage blazed in his glance. 

“What is it?” said Brok. 

“Blast cartridges mean humans,” said Steve. “If 
I am not mistaken our cohorts have blown their 
tops in most untimely fashion. Arm yourself 
with stick and grenades.” 

Brok draped the shining straps across the black 
silk of his chest and sped after Steve, 

The town was ablaze with all the lights of 
which it was capable. The arc barriers which 
protected the individual houses were crackling 
and hissing, filling the atmosphere with the acrid 
ozone. 

Steve swept Brok into a shadowy circle and to 
the ground, and an instant later a Mirionite pa- 



trol, racing towers in high silhouette against the 
glowing sky, shook the brush and trees in their 
passage. 

Forty seconds later the jungle in the direction 
of Steve’s house was alight with the vicious snap 
of arcs and a howling jabber bade Steve to come 
forth. There was a wait and then a renewed 
burst of electricity as they sprayed the old resi- 
dence into so much molten silica. The patrol 
came racing back and swept out of sight in the 
city. 

Steve was up and following nearly on their heels 
when the crash of flame guns suddenly rose to 
a crescendo on the walls. An arc turret burst 
into garish flame and a Mirionite soldier reeled 
out of it, a pyre, to drop to the ground in a geyser 
of sparks. 

With the suddenness of a thunderbolt and the 
fury of an earthquake a gigantic explosion 
splashed fire into the sky. The lights of the city 
went down to flickers, gasped and expired. The 
blazing powerhouse and the crackling turret shed 
bloody light upon a scene of tumult which was 
cut jaggedly by long arcs and sprayed with flame. 

Another turret exploded with a crash which 
knocked down a section of the wall, and by its 
light Steve saw a company of Mirionites racing 
outward to the plain. 

The company was met, point-blank, by a wall 
of fire from a rank of Earthmen, and the Mirion- 
ites were crisped and set ablaze, skidding as their 
momentum carried them forward. A turret came 
into crackling action and an arc swept out of it 
and slapped down, explosively as it touched each 
man, the ranks which had annihilated the Mirion- 
ites. 

“Two dozen men dead,” said Steve. “Why?” 

“Perhaps Blacker has ordered a revolt.” 

“Quiet,” said Steve, pressing against the wall. 
“We’re behind the enemy and there’s nothing we 
can do here.” 

Half a dozen companies of Mirionites, yanking 
along a battery of gigantic artillery, began to dis- 
tribute themselves behind the wall, the end of 
their line reaching swiftly toward the point where 
Steve and Brok had stopped. 

Steve, beckoning, raced through the shadows up 
the hill, toward the cooling wreckage of his late 
residence. As he passed he gave it a wry glance, 
for it had stored a fortune and more of delinium 
and metal cloth. 

Behind them came yet more Mirionite troops, 
covering ground at ten yards and more the pace, 
evidently sent to block the hill path to the plain. 

Steve knew they were being overtaken, but he 
raced up the side of the reservoir in a final spurt, 
hoping that the Mirionites would pause to form 
a line. The Mirionites did not. Steve yanked 





THE REBELS 



57 



Brok down under thick foliage and the huge feet 
thudded hard by. 

“We’re cut off completely,” whispered Steve. 
“I hope those damned fools out there know what 
they’re doing; I don’t.” 

“We can attack soldiers from rear,” said Brok, 
whose courage and lack of recognition of the vast 
difference qf arms and size was capable of doing 
just that. 

“I’m not dying in a fight,” said Steve, “until I 
at least know what it is all about. I’m through,” 
he added out of bitter memory, “fighting myself 
ragged for a principle.” 

Brok tried to understand it. “You mean you are 
scared to attack these soldiers in back?” 

“Yes, I’m scared. How would you like to attack 
a tank with your fingernails. It’s the same thing.” 

Brok looked at Steve by the light of the freshly 
ignited turrets below them and there was a shadow 
of regret in Brok’s eyes. 

Steve saw it. “We wouldn’t stand a chance. 
We could shoot our way through them and run 
only to be picked off by them before we could get 
fifty feet. And if this company missed us, spot- 
ters in a turret would see us and burn us down,” 

Brok’s disappointment — for he had been all 
geared up for battle — ^made him pettish for a mo- 
ment. He had lost, just now, a great deal of his 
faith in the mighty Gailbraith. “If we cannot go 
through, we can only stay to be caught and killed 
in the morning.” 

Steve glanced at him and sighed. “Some guys 
have the damnedest appetite for suicide! Morn- 
ing, Brok, is several hours hence.” 

“I am going to try,” said Brok, his shattered 
confidence in the bravery of the colonel express- 
ing itself mutinously. 

“You try,” said Steve, “and the first thing to hit 
you will be a flame shell from here.” And he 
patted his right-hand holster, 

Brok, turned sullen, lay back. 

A moment later the patter of human feet 
sounded on the path behind them and three brawny 
longshoremen, followed by a ship’s boy, sped by 
the cover. They went too quickly to be stopped, 
though Steve rolled swiftly out to snatch them 
back. He only succeeded in grabbing the shirt 
of the ship’s boy, who, with a small yelp of ter- 
ror, came crashing down on the trail. He saw 
Steve out of fear-distended eyes and then, recog- 
nizing himself, quickly and guiltily composed his 
features. 

The three longshoremen, heeding neither warn- 
ing cry nor the possibility of ambush on this trail, 
sought to dive down the steps beside the reservoir. 
Abruptly great hands shot down like scoop shov- 
els and yanked them, struggling, high into the 
air. A roar of voices came forth instantly from 
the Mirionites, and their captain, huge and painted 



red by the blazes on the wall and in the town, 
stepped into the clear and snatched the first long- 
shoreman from the hand of a soldier. 

With rage twisting his already hideous face 
the Mirionite captain crushed the legs of his 
quarry in his grip and then threw the longshore- 
man down against the stones and stamped, metal- 
shod, upon the skull. The captain took the sec- 
ond and yanked off his arms and tore him bodily 
apart. The third was set down again upon the 
path and told to run. When he did, half a dozen 
arcs flashed out and charred him to a small curl 
of smoke. 

The ship’s boy, a child named Lucky, grew pale 
and ill for all his attempt to remain outwardly the 
man. 

“You see?” said Steve to Brok. 

But Brok, now that Steve had failed to help 
those three longshoremen, was more disdainful 
than ever. He snorted and turned away his face. 

“I see,” said Steve, “that you have definite ideas 
about war. The idea we used to hammer into 
privates. Heaven help them. Well, if you don’t 
like what I do, keep it to yourself. And if you 
disobey anything I tell you, remember that you’ll 
be shot.” He moved close to Lucky and whis- 
pered, “What the hell is going on? How did you 
get mixed up in this?” 

Lucky, whose parents had died of green fever, 
had been a sort of all-around mascot and boot 
polisher to the Fury. His small, freckled visage, 
for all he could do about it, was streaked with 
tears. 

“I don’t know, I heard there was to be an at- 
tack on the town, but nobody told me it was 
gonna be tonight. I ... I saw Jecker and his 
pals leave and I — You won’t whip me?” 

“Of course not,” whispered Steve gruffly. 

“Sometimes I follow sailors or longshoremen 
into town at night and they give me a duro when 
I turn up and guide them home. I ... I didn’t 
know they were going to blow up the power- 
house 1” 

“What’s the battle all about?” 

“Mr. Blacker says we are all going back to 
Earth and be happy again. He says Fagar has 
promised it. A fleet of warships is to come and 
take us away.” 

“Oh, the fool!” groaned Steve. “The word of 
Fagar!” 

“D-do you think we’ll ever get back to the 
Fury?” said Lucky. 

“No,” said Steve. “But there’s a chance of our 
staying alive.” 

Brok grunted disgustedly at this. 

Concurrently at a distance of two and a quarter 
kilometers from the reservoir Vicky Stalton fell 
back upon the decaying ruin of the Fury with 
the rear guard, occasionally dropping to one knee 





58 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



to lash a blast of fire into the ranks of the 
Mrrionites who had grown brave under the pro- 
tection of artillery and who now attempted sally 
after sally. The great hulks were silhouetted 
against the red tongues which devoured a portion 
of their city and their way was littered with the 
burning slain. 

Vicky’s cheek was blackened from the smoke of 
her weapon and her kepi was lost, allowing her 
hair to stream dovm to her shoulders and give 
her a tangled cap of gold. 

The rear guard was nearly to the ship before a 
covering blast from the Fury checked the attack- 
ers and allowed the remnant of the men who had 
gone out to find shelter in the battered hull. Un- 
der the onslaught the Mirionites fanned out and 
took cover behind the hangars of their ships to 
begin a devastating cross fire upon the gunners 
who harassed them. 

At the farthest point from the Fury a spheroid 
leaped skyward, followed closely by two more. 
The Fury put smoke where the first had been, 
but the second and third were able to outreach the 
searching blasts and gain altitude from which 
they began to spray violent shocks of electricty, 
the while moving too swiftly to be struck. 

Hands hauled Vicky up through the port and 
she made her way swiftly to the bridge, not even 
waiting for her hard breathing to ease. 

Behind her, Jean Mauchard and six remaining 
Sons of Science sweated despairingly at the last 
remaining flame cannon. Underfoot were the 
bodies of three of their dead, killed by the arc of 
a spherical vessel above, a shot which had also 
disintegrated the breach and sighting mechanism 
of their last weapon. Despite the killing heat of 
the turret, the seven had managed to drill the bar- 
rel above the heat-sealed chamber and now, like 
hell-blackened demons, fought the gun by muzzle 
loading and touchhole fusing. 

Each time the piece fired it swept a wide path 
across the troops of the field — but it was not firing 
often enough. Arcs from the city were searching 
for this remaining turret and the old Fury was 
groggily rolling under each impact of the fire. 

“It’s your fault!” cried Blacker, shaking 
clenched fist in the scientist’s face. “You should 
have investigated!” 

Mauchard paused to face his accuser. Mau- 
chard’s fine old face was powder-pitted and his 
hair was scorched to a convict cut. “I am guilty? 
Why — ” But here he faltered. “How was I to 
suspect that they would not be incapacitated by 
the destruction of their power plant? How was 
I to know that our shells could not burn these 
hangars?” 

“You yelp about being a scientist!” railed 
Blacker. “And you made blunders like that!” 

“I am a scientist,” said Mauchard, scanning the 
forlorn field before them from whence would come 



their death before the hour was done. “But right 
now I wish that I were a military man.” Pen- 
sively he added, “Colonel Gailbraith would have 
known they would naturally have auxiliary power 
units. He would have understood the necessity of 
ascertaining the structural material of their han- 
gars. And he would not have sent out a rabble 
army to face murder before that wall.” 

“To hell with Gailbraith!” howled Blacker. “He 
got what was coming to him! Get on that gun, 
figure out something, do something!” 

“You — ” said Vicky, suddenly chill, “know he 
is dead?” 

“Of course I know it!” cried Blacker. “Do you 
think I wanted him here hogging the show? Do 
you think I trusted him after all the tricks he’s 
pulled?” 

Vicky was holding to the port, anger alone 
keeping her senses with her. “You left him un- 
warned! You left him in that city to die!” 

Mauchard glared at Blacker. “That was one 
part of the plan you didn’t see fit to tell me about. 
The only man knowing anything about such con- 
cerns, the only man who, I realize now, is com- 
petent to protect us and direct us, you have mur- 
dered !” 

The Fury was eating up sections of the defend- 
ing wall now, taking down a turret here and there. 
But the volume of fire from the town seemed to be 
coming from the other side of it and over it and 
was not diminished in the least. 

Vicky moved away from the port, but just as 
she turned her head something in the heavens 
caught her glance. She stared aloft, unbelieving. 
But the three small comets had been augmented 
by ten long streams of rocket fire! 

The space fleet was here! 

Down swept the long, black cruisers, guns and 
then blasts sweeping the two Mirionite ships into 
spacedust! Down stabbed the curling, brilliant 
breaths of the guns, rooting up sections of wall 
every instant! 

The air was alive with the throb of pulsating 
tubes and the shock of thundering flame. Turrets 
and domed forts shattered into fragments. 

One sweep across the city was enough, for when 
the space fleet swooped back not one arc reached 
up to them. Foot Mirionites and a terror-racked 
governor fled to the ridges, throwing away their 
arms or cast themselves down in the streets and 
on the plain in supplication to the invaders. 

The ten ships landed in ragged formation upon 
the field and their gaunt, black hulls spewed forth 
landing parties who swiftly began to round up and 
clean out the remaining defenders. 

Blacker, roaring his glee, swung down the 
hatch and scuttled below to leave the ship and 




THE REBELS 



59 



greet their deliverers. Mauchard stepped back to 
allow Vicky to precede him. 

But Vicky had no more than placed a foot on 
the ladder when a great silky arm struck like a 
black snake and yanked her back while a pair of 
light boots kicked the hatch cover into place and 
stood upon it. 

The group which had been awaiting to ascend 
fell back before the muzzles of the hand guns 
which rested so indolently in Steve Gailbraith’s 
hands. And each man, when one of those guns 
fired and the lights went out, thought he himself 
had been struck. 

In the semidark, the group lighted only by the 
blazing fires of the town which sent shafts through 
the smoking gun port and bathed them all in scar- 
let, Brok quietly stripped them of weapons. 

Too startled to cry or to speak and too relieved 
to longer carry on, Vicky sank down upon a shell, 
staring at the tall personification of assurance and 
competence which had so suddenly blocked their 
exit. 

“I wouldn’t shout to the admiral’s fleet, if I were 
you,” said Steve to Jean Mauchard who had edged 
toward the ports. “I don’t believe you’ll have the 
pleasure of meeting him — at least not for a long 
time. It happens that you are all my prisoners — 
and very valuable prisoners at that.” 

“Valuable?” goggled Mauchard from beneath 
singed brows, for he had a thought which flitted 
around the subject of ransom but could not light 
upon it. 

“Watch out there,” said Steve. “You made a 
mistake about customary auxiliary power imits 
and, as I heard from the shell hole up there, about 
the material of the hangars. Why make another 
mistake slightly greater in fatality?” 

“But you didn’t stop Blacker and Blacker — you 
must know — ” 

“That is why I didn’t stop Blacker,” said Steve 
indifferently. “Watch, gentlemen. For his great- 
ness, Fagar’s admiral, is about to stage a drama 
for you. A somewhat chilling one, no doubt.” 

The group eased toward the gun ports and 
stared across the brightly illumined field to the 



circle of landed battleships, cruisers and destroy- 
ers. Every man, woman and child who remained 
alive of the Sereon Expedition, with the exception 
of those held here by Steve, streamed across the 
chopped earth to form an ever-widening ring about 
the flagship of their “deliverers.” Floods from the 
upper shell blazed down upon them and turned 
them into a bluish-white expanse. 

With cool carelessness, Steve cocked a radio- 
ranger toward the group and tuned it so that its 
screen became great with the picture of the gang- 
way which was now being let down and the front 
rank of faces which included Blacker’s. 

A port opened and Admiral Bospor stepped out 
to the head of the gangway. Without speaking, 
he considered this mob of tatterdemalions which 
filled the inclosure made by his ten vessels. 

“Are we all here?” said the admiral, smiling 
strangely and letting his small black eyes rove. 

“I’ll say! As many as are still alive,” said 
Blacker. “Brother, you sure came in the nick of 
time. Another half hour and we’d all been dead !” 

“Well, well,” said the admiral, adjusting his cap 
upon his shining bullet head. “So we are all here. 
What about the various items of interest and 
worth which you mentioned. Blacker?” 

“In the town. The whole place is full.” 

“Any particular cache?” 

“I tell you its running over with the stuff,” said 
Blacker. “Brother, I’ll sure put in a good word to 
Fagar about you.” 

“That,” said the admiral, “is very, very kind of 
you, indeed.” 

Blacker leaped up to the first step and faced his 
assembled people. “Three cheers for Admiral 
Bospor! Hip!” 

“HIP! HIP! HURRAH!” bellowed the mob 
within the circle of ships. 

“Three cheers for Fagar” cried Blacker. 

“Hip! HIP! HURRAH!” roared the multitude. 

“Now,” said Blacker, glancing up at Admiral 
Bospor, “what disposition are you going to 
make?” 

“That, my dear fellow,” said the admiral, “is a 




Don’t cough in public places. Cany with you 
9 box of delicious Smith Brothers Cough 
Drops. (Black ot Menthol, 5^.) 

Smith Bros. Cough Drops are the 
only drops containing VITAMIN A 

Vitamin A (Carotene) raises the resistance of 
mucous membranes of nose and throat to 
cold infections, when lack of resist* 
aace is due to Vitamia A de&ciency* 






60 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE- FICTION 



surprise we have been holding until the last.” 

There was something in the fellow’s tone which 
made even Blacker shiver. But he had no further 
chance to question for the admiral had stepped 
backward into the ship and the heavy port had 
clanged securely shut. 

From a speaker invisible to the crowd came an 
order, “Ready with small arms! Load! FIRE 
AT WILL!” 

Some understood and tried to run. Others stood 
stupidly looking at the engulfing walls of the ves- 
sels and so blocked the way. Others screamed for 
mercy and fell on their knees. All might have 
sav?d themselves the effort. A withering sheet 
of fire which blazed into them from all sides 
sickled greedily, eating from the outmost circle 
steadily in toward the center. Smoke shot up 
from the charring bodies and dust, kicked by 
charges, mingled with it. The mob milled and 
churned, screamed and prayed, reviled and begged 
— and went steadily down to eternal silence. 

For fifteen minutes charges chewed into the 
mass and made it stir long after it had ceased to 
move of its own accord. And then, on disinter- 
ested command, the firing stopped. A few patrols 
came out of the ships and went about through the 
slain, pistoling a head here and there and making 
certain of all, wandering like black ghouls with a 
thirst for the last sparks of life. 

Steve, who had been leaning against the warm 
muzzle of the cannon, facing neither port nor 
screen, made a signal and Brok reached up to shut 
off the radio ranger. The sudden removal of the 
tiring from the turret to nearly two kilometers 
across the field came as a sudden and dramatic 
thing to all those left. 

Brok had wrapped a tunic around Lucky’s head, 
thus shutting off sight and much of the sound 
and now when Lucky’s eyes emerged, the boy said, 
“What happened? What was it all about?” 

“Why,” said Steve, “Fagar just paid for a favor 
in his usual way.” 

One of the Sons of Science was green and ill. 
The others were but little better off. Jean Mau- 
chard was staring at Steve as would a man who has 
just been presented with a sight of a god. 

“Gentlemen,” said Steve, “please sit quietly 
down and say nothing. This is going to be a long 
wait.” He glanced at his chronograph. “We can 
do very little for the next six hours for during 
that time the fleet will take on provisions and 
water and load their loot.” 

That woke Mauchard. “They’ll find us here! 
And if they go away and leave us the Mirionites 
will slaughter us on sight.” 

“Sit down,” said Steve. 

He set the example by lying back on a row of 
charge sacks. And Vicky, who still groped for 



something to say, now said nothing for Steve 
Gailbraith was asleep. 

A few minutes before dawn, Brok moved 
through the group to wake his lord. They held a 
whispered consultation wherein Brok seemed to 
be imparting a report of the last few hours. 

“Very well,” said Steve. “Rout them out,” 

Brok hauled at the two Sons of Science who 
had slept and stood them up. The others needed 
no urging for their nerves were sawed nearly in 
half by this experience and the following eternity 
during which men had groped through the Fury, 
pillaging her and random shots and shouts had 
sounded in the town and on the field. Things were 
so silent now that any slightest sound the group 
made stood hair on edge. 

Steve threw open the hatch and walked down 
the ladder, guns in hand. After him came a still- 
dazed Vicky. Following her was Mauchard and 
his six and then came Brok with Lucky sitting 
high upon his shoulder. 

Steve paused by the sick bay and looked in to 
find, as he had expected, that it held only dead 
men. He went on to the main port and walked 
down the gangway. Behind him the group fal- 
tered for, hulls glistening in the pearl half-light, 
the fleet still rested upon the field. They saw 
Steve walking away from them and hastened to 
catch up with him, although their fears mounted 
as they approached the formidable squadron. 

At the side of the flagship Steve paused and 
indicated the sentry who sprawled inertly there, 
mouth open and snoring, A Son of Science hauled 
the man off the steps. Steve went up into the ship 
with confident step. 

The group halted at the bottom of the bridge 
ladder and let Brok set Lucky down and pass 
through them to answer Steve’s bidding. A mo- 
ment later, accompanied by the crisp order to 
throw them out of the vessel, a number of officers 
bumped and slithered down the ladder. The Sons 
of Science controlled their gawps and threw the 
officers out. 

Then, from compartment to compartment they 
went, finding everywhere men in attitudes of deep 
slumber, men who di^not object to the roughest 
possible handling, which they. got. The pile grew 
at the battleship’s side until it numbered the four 
hundred and twenty which made up the full crew 
with marines. 

At first the Sons of Science worked quietly but 
then they began to understand that the other nine 
ships were in like state. A feverish concern, how- 
ever, did not leave them for, at any moment, they 
expected to be charged from one quarter or an- 
other and annihilated. 

At the bridge again, having worked the ship 
through and back, Steve addressed Mauchard. 
“The loot our friend the admiral collected is 





THE REBELS 



61 



aboard here. The ship is well stocked with water 
and supplies, fuel and ammunition. Do you think 
you and your six can perform the duties of an 
entire crew?” 

“I am sure we can,” said Mauchard. 

“Then warm up her fuel impulsators and pre- 
pare to get away within the next fifteen minutes.” 

“Very good,” said Mauchard and hurried off 
with his men to the after part of the ship. 

Steve approached a gun in the bridge wing and 
tracked its charge belt. It was only a seven- 
centimeter weapon but his range was only a few 
meters. He sat down on the pointers ledge and 
waved Brok to the loads. Brok, his solemnity 
breaking into a white grin, fell to with a will. 
Here, from the vantage of the nose, they com- 
manded the nine cruisers and destroyers and when 
the gun began to blaze, its fury making the echoes 
resound, the rest of the bridges of the fleet began 
to resemble cascades in a stream as the molten 
metal ran. One ship to the next, one bridge to the 
next. Even a seven-centimeter weapon, if played 
relentlessly and accurately could make sufficient 
havoc to prevent any one of these vessels from 
ever taking the sky again — for how could they 
navigate the limitless immensities of space with- 
out instruments? Without helms? And how 
could they land with even their auxiliary controls 
melted away? In the old Royal Navy, officers 
would have built new instruments, opened new 
bridges. But this was the navy of Fagar, Dictator 
of All. And the officers of the old Royal Navy 
were dead under the hot breath of Fagar’s guns. 

And then, aiming at the hard side armor of the 
nearest vessel and playing his weapon like a huge 
and roaring tattoo needle, Steve spelled out his 
name. 

From the intership speaker came Mauchard’s 
voice. “Tubes ready, sir.” 

“Tubes ready,” said Steve. “Take the helm, 
Brok.” 

Steve laid a deft hand upon the throttles. The 
Terror shivered in anticipation, became light and 
then began to drift upward with her repellators. 
When she was a mile above the field, Steve looked 
down upon the city, the ships, the dark cluster of 



dead, the ruin of the Fury. He raised his right 
hand in salute to the ancient Royal battleship, bid- 
ding her forever good-by and with her, his yester- 
day as a cadet, as an officer, as a gentleman. Full 
gun, then, the Terror blasted forward. 

Vicky, her knees weak and her head throbbing 
came to the bridge, still trying to say something 
to Steve, still trying to explain in a way he might 
understand and so that he might forgive, still try- 
ing to tell him that her glance upon Blacker had 
been born of her wish to make Steve live again. 
But she could find no words. She moved to the 
drinking stand and filled a cup with water. 

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” said Steve. “A swal- 
low but no more.” 

She stared at the cup. The water had no odor 
and contained no sediment. “What . . . what’s 
wrong with it?” 

“Why,” said Lucky, bobbing up to the bridge 
and using a disdainful voice he reserved for 
women, “I guess maybe Steve fooled you, too, 
huh? Why let me tell you I’m all worn out my- 
self from carrying tons of that stuff from the town 
warehouses to the reservoir. And just like Steve 
said the space fleet watered up like they always 
do when they can.” 

“What stuff?” said Vicky with an awful sus- 
picion of poison. 

“Why, dak, of course,” said Lucky. No odor, 
no color. We dumped it in and the whole fleet got 
dead drunk. They ain’t never had no experience 
with dak. Like I just told old Mauchard, it takes 
a military man to think up things like that.” 

“What Mauchard say?” said Brok. 

“Why,” said Lucky, “he agreed with me. He’d 
better had, too, because I’d have kicked his shins 
in. Where we going now, Steve?” 

Steve grinned at Lucky and, raising his head, 
saw Vicky’s big blue eyes upon him. Their glance 
met, held for a moment and then broke away. 

Vicky watched the planet go spinning away be- 
low and their trail of smoke through what re- 
mained of atmosphere. Whither bound she knew 
not. When she would arrive she knew not either. 
All she knew was that she was very, very happy. 
It hadn’t been necessary, after all, to find those 
words to say. 



THE END. 





62 



THE LONG-TAILED HUNS 

By L Sprague de Camp 

• Concluding a two-part article on the wild life of the cities. To survive 
despite man's determined objections, an animal or plant has to he tough! 



Illustrated by Orban 



Last month we went through the urban life-zone 
as far as the park pigeon, incidentally cleaning up 
all the vertebrates in this little-studied category. 

That leaves the invertebrates (a scientifically 
meaningless but practically useful class — which 
reminds one of a curious feature of the Hopi 
language: instead of a word for “flyer” and a 
series of words for members of subclasses within 
this class: bird, airplane, aviator, butterfly, et- 
cetera, they have two words: one, for “bird,” and 
another word, masa’ytaka, meaning “flying non- 
bird”) and the plants. These may not be as ob- 
trusive as the urban vertebrates, but they have 
their points. 

So much for the urban vertebrates. Almost all 
kinds of insects turn up in cities occasionally, but, 
as with mammals and birds, certain species are 
permanent and more or less exclusive town dwell- 
ers. As with the vertebrates, the urban insects 
have numerous wilds relatives. For instance most 
mosquitoes are swamp and lake dwellers. But a 
few species have adapted themselves to laying 
their eggs in man-made bodies of water: canals, 
irrigation ditches, rain barrels, and such, and are 
seldom found except in association with man. 
Among these are the yellow-fever mosquito, 
Stegomyia fasciata, several species of the malaria- 
spreading Anopheles, and the elephantiasis- 
carrying Culex fatigans. 

The urban insects par excellence are the bedbug, 
the housefly, and the cockroach. The housefly 
Musca domestica seems to have been an insect of 
the warm-temperate zone originally, as is shown 
by its late-spring swarming in cool latitudes, and 
the fact that in the very hot climate of Egypt it 
has two swarming seasons. May and September. 
Now it is found all over the world except in south- 
ern India, where its place is taken by the similar 
M. nebulo. M. domestica shows all the fecundity, 
quick growth, unfastidious tastes, and nervous 
alertness that are characteristic of urban life. It 
lays one hundred twenty to one hundred fifty eggs 
at a time, preferably in horse manure. The active 



and voracious maggots may, under sufficiently 
favorable conditions, develop into pupae and 
emerge as adult flies in as little as five days, 
though the process normally takes several weeks. 
The flies newly emerged from their pupae have an 
inflatable bladder, the ptilinum, on their faces to 
enable them to burrow out of their late home. 

The average wilds fly, even such biting kinds as 
the deer fly, can easily be swatted with the bare 
hand. Not so with the housefly. Swing on M. 
domestica, and he nonchalantly takes off a tenth 
of a second before your hand arrives and lights on 
the back of the said hand. He spreads cholera, 
summer diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid fever, and 
parasitic worms. 

Houseflies are often confused with any of sev- 
eral similar flies. One if the lesser housefly, Fan- 
nia canicularis; the beastie that is often seen cir- 
cling round and round under a lighting fixture in 
the center of the ceiling. Another is the stable 
fly, Stomoxis calcitrans, who is notorious for bit- 
ing through socks into your ankles with the sensa- 
tion of a jab from a hot needle. He can be dis- 
tinguished from the housefly by his protruding 
beak. 

Cockroaches are interesting as the most primi- 
tive existing winged insects. They are not much 
more advanced insects than silver-fish, and have 
come down from the Carboniferous with little 
change. Of the twelve hundred known species, 
four have definitely taken to urban life. Of these 
the smallest, the slender, golden-brown “Croton 
bug,” is the so-called German roach Blatella ger- 
manica. The Oriental roach Blatta orientalis is 
larger, about an inch long, with a wide, squarish 
body, dark brown or black. The female is wing- 
less in this species. The American roach Peri- 
planeta americana is the biggest of all, reaching a 
length of an inch and a Iialf. It is mahogany- 
colored. The Australian roach P. australasiae is 
like the American roach, but smaller. 

All these roaches have similar habits. We find 




63 




Ragweed — which should, perhaps, be known as “the Gesundheit plant,” 
and is known, to many, by unpleasant names, during the pollen season 

in early {all— 



the usual fecundity and promiscuous appetites, 
and, despite their lowly position in the insects’ 
family tree, a hair-trigger nervous system that 
enables them to scuttle out of harm’s way within 
seconds when you turn the kitchen light on. They 
will consume, among other things, wallpaper, 
books, candy, and beer. (They really love beer.) 
They have one “virtue”: they eat bedbugs when 
they get the chance. 

The urban roaches display another characteristic 
that runs through the urban life-forms: like the 
rats and the sparrow, they are dressed in somber, 
uniform coloring, though some of the large tropi- 
cal wilds roaches are quite gorgeous insects. These 
latter, as you might expect, plod about in a calm 
and dignified manner quite different from the 
streaking gallop of an alarmed urban roach. They 
do not even show much reaction to being handled. 

The other insects infesting cities belong in the 
categories either of personal parasites or of occa- 
sional invaders. Among the latter are furniture 
beetles, clothes moths, silver-fish, and termites. 

Another occasional invader is that feathery, 
fragile little scuttler, the house centipede, Scuti- 
gera forceps. He is a harmless critter — as many 
centipedes are not — and is useful in keeping down 
other insects. I should say simply keeping down 
insects, for Scutigera is obviously no insect, but 
an arachnid. Several of the more typical arachnids, 
the spiders, have become mainly house dwellers. 

There is no one house spider, unless the long- 
legged, gray Tegenaria derhamii deserves the 
title. This spider is probably an immigrant from 



Europe. The family to which she belongs build 
flat, dense webs with a tube or funnel leading off 
from one corner. The spider lurks in this tube 
until a victim arrives. Her method of repairing 
holes in her blanketlike web is very simple: she 
walks about the web leaving her dragline as she 
goes, and in the course of time naturally deposits 
it over the holes as well as over the rest. 

The spiders of the family Theridiae build light, 
loose, amorphous webs with threads going in every 
direction. Of this family several species are 
house dwellers. One notorious member of the 
family shows a deplorable tendency to move into 
houses: the black widow Latrodectus mactans, 
which looks like a black shoe button with legs. 
Up to twenty years ago textbooks on spiders dis- 
missed Latrodectus with such phrases as “popu- 
larly believed to be very poisonous, though there 
is no reason to think that the bite of any American 
spider is really dangerous — ” Then a few investi- 
gators had the bright idea of making a black 
widow bite them and recording the results. They 
got plenty, in the form of hours of excruciating 
aches and pains, sometimes accompanied by con- 
vulsions, delirium, or unconsciousness. The in- 
vestigators all recovered, but did not write any 
more books describing the black widow as harm- 
less. 

Except for the occasional invader Latrodectus, 
the house spiders show some of the distinctive 
characteristics of the urban life-zone; moderate 
to small size, dingy coloring, adaptability. Tege- 
naria and the Theridiae build webs of a primitive 




64 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



type; the specialized and often handsomely col- outside my window right now, looking a trifle 
ored orb spiders are sometimes found on the out- yellow-leaved and peaked from the dry spring 
sides of houses, but almost never inside. As spiders we have had. The London plane is one of Corn- 
go, the house spiders are arachnids of a simple, missioner Moses’ favorite park trees because of 
unspecialized type, just as the rat is a simple mam- its exceptional hardiness under city conditions, 
mal, and the cockroach is such a typical insect American park departments generally call this 

that it is used as a starting point in entomology tree the Oriental plane, which it is not; or the 

courses. As the whole spider order is confined by London lime, though it is not a lime tree. To tell 
its basic structure to a strictly carnivorous diet, the truth it is not a species in the ordinary sense 
the house spiders could not develop the astonish- of the word at all, but a hybrid; a cross between 
ing food tolerance of the other dominant urban the Oriental plane, Platanus orientalis, and the 
life-forms. Occidental plane or American sycamore, Platanus 

occidentalis, which, by the way, is not the “true” 
So much for the urban members of the animal sycamore, 
kingdom. How about plants? We can consider “London plane” is far the best name, for the 
two rough types: trees and weeds. (That is a tree originated in England about 1670. The Orien- 
“rough” method of classifying, because biologi- tal plane, a native of Greese and Turkey, had been 
cally a tree may be far more closely related to a introduced to England, and in 1636 a colonist 
weed than to another tree.) None of them is truly named Tradescant brought an Occidental plane 
both wild and urban: The trees all depend on back from America and planted it in the Oxford 

man’s cultivation or at least tolerance because of Botanical Garden. Miscegenation occurred. The 
their size, like the Indian cows. And the weeds British Museum has the description of the type 

all occur in the wilds as well as the city. specimen, published 1700. Several huge London 

The city is just as tough an environment for planes were living in England in 1919 and may be 

plants as for animals. A vast number of species yet; some of these were probably grown from 

cannot endure city atmosphere, especially the air cuttings from the original tree. One such cutting 
of industrial cities. The most virulently poison- was planted in the Palace Garden at Ely by a 
ous ingredient thereof is possibly sulphur diox- Bishop Gunning between 1674 and 1684. 

ide, a minute trace of which will stunt or kill The London plane is always grown from cut- 

many plants. Nor do most plants 
survive the destruction of soil bac- 
teria that results from digging, burn- 
ing, and simple accumulation of soot. 

Of our native trees the best smoke- 
eaters are the willow, the cotton- 
woods, and the silver poplar. Of the 
hundred odd plants classed as weeds 
— meaning that they decline to die 
out politely in the presence of man — 
the prostrate pigweed, fescue grass, 
milk purslane, and old witch grass 
can grow next door to a blast furnace, 
though they develop such stunted 
and deformed plants that they can 
hardly be recognized for what they 
are. This is what one would expect; 
among the urban animals the main 
adaptations are in the form of be- 
havior. But plants have no behavior 
to speak of; their chief life activity 
is growth, and it is their growth that 
is modified by the city environment. 

Thr e trees, though really “tame” 
trees, are so strictly urban that they 
deserve consideration. I shall start 
with the London plane, Platanus 
acerifolia — the “maple-leafed plane,” 

not to be confused with the sycamore consider the cockroach, and bow he thrives. The world’s changes 

maple Acer pseudoplatanus. Several ,-jj eoOfiOOJOOO years — from insects to giant saurians to man — haven’t 

of these handsome trees are growing been able to do him in yet! 




THE LONG-TAILED HUNS 



65 



tings. The tree has what in an animal would cor- 
respond to normal sex instincts, just as mules have. 
Whereas the mules get no results, the London 
plane, when it seeds, gets results — but not little 
London planes. The next generation is a motley 
assortment of trees, some resembling the Oriental 
and some the Occidental plane. (The Oriental 
plane has deeply indented leaves, like the pin oak.) 
The London plane, like its parents, has a non- 
stretching bark that peels off in sheets, giving the 
tree a green-and-brown splotched appearance. 

Another strictly urban tree is the “tree of 
heaven” or ailanthus, Ailanthus altissima, which, 
despite its name, reaches a height of only sixty 
feet. This native of China is naturalized in the 
cities of the eastern United States. Any plant’s 
survival depends, not on its agility or eyesight, but 
on its ability to use and compete with other plants 
for the available resources of chemicals and sun- 
light. The ailanthus is a poor competitor; in the 
wilds it cannot make its way among the maples, 
alders, et cetera. But it just happens to be able 
to thrive regardless of soil and air conditions, so 
it gets along in cities where competition from 
other plants is slight and controlled. 

Much the same applies to the ginkgo or maiden- 
hair, Ginkgo bilboa. This is a living fossil of 
sorts. It is related to the primitive cycads which 
go clear back to the Carboniferous. The ginkgo 
was common throughout North America and Eu- 
rasia until the Pleistocene, when it vanished ut- 
terly except in China, where it survives mainly in 
temple courtyards. A famous botanist named Wil- 
son, director of the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard, 
tried to track down the rumor that it was to be 
found growing wild in China. But he found not 
one ginkgo growing where there was neither a 
temple nor a tradition of a temple’s once having 
been. It gets along in America by growing where 
the pure-air trees will not, though it will probably 
never be allowed to grow in large numbers: the 
flowers of the female tree stink. 

Man has only moderate trouble in keeping the 
larger plants such as trees in check; the problem 



is to protect the trees from the men rather than 
vice versa. The only large plants that grow with 
weedlike rapidity are the bamboos, which are 
nothing but colossal grasses. Most of the smaller 
plants likewise retreat before human cultivation 
and congregation. But some of them have tricks 
of adaptation that enable them to survive in de- 
fiance of human disapproval. These are popularly 
called weeds. 

For instance some small plants infest cultivated 
land because their life cycles happen to coincide 
with those of the crops. Hence they are not de- 
stroyed by plowing and reaping. Others have a 
tolerance, like that of the London plane, for 
ruined soil and smoky air. 

Certain tricks enable some plants to invade 
lawns: a habit of sending out horizontal stems or 
roots — technically called rhizomes and stolons re- 
spectively— from which other plants arise; or the 
possesion of a short stem with the leaves arranged 
in a low crown or rosette, so that a lawn mower 
does not reach it. Bermuda grass is an example 
of the former and the dandelion of the latter. 

The prunella. Prunella vulgaris, owes its present 
cosmopolitan distribution to the fact that it was 
once considered by herb doctors to be a cure for 
practically everything from hookworm to ingrow- 
ing disposition. The shepherd’s purse, Capsella 
bursa-pastor, may have been helped along in its 
travels by the fact that some Europeans held the 
belief that carrying a bit of it brought good 
financial luck. Knot grass. Polygonum aviculare, 
a member of the buckwheat family, thrives because 
it endures being stepped on much better than most 
plants. Hence it occurs largely along paths and 
on much-trampled lawns. Some weeds have seeds 
that live for decades: plantains, daisies, the jimson. 

Of the twelve or thirteen principal hay-fever 
weeds and grasses, the most notorious of 
all, the tall ragweed. Ambrosia triSda, and 
the short ragweed, A. elatoir, are not especially 
urban plants, but grow thickly in suburbs and 
along roadsides in the East and Midlands. They 
are easily recognized: the short ragweed by its 





66 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



deeply indented, ragged leaves and the pale-green 
spires of its flowers ; the tall species by its similar 
spires and trilobate leaves. Yet probably not one 
hay-fever sufferer in ten knows the cause of his 
misery when he sees it. They are easy to eradicate 
by pulling up by the roots. 

But promiscuous weeding of vacant lots and 
other denuded soil will not get rid of the hay- 
fever weeds for long. Most of them are annuals; 
they die at the end of each summer anyway, and 
next year a whole new crop grows from seed. 
Their quick growth enables them to seiae naked 
ground before the perennial plants can get started. 
In the natural course of events the hardier peren- 
nials get a foothold and drive out the annuals. 
To remove all the weeds from an area merely 
means keeping it indefinitely in the annual-weed, 
hay-fever producing stage. It is more effective 
to plant the area with a non-allergen-producing 
weed. 

When an area has passed through the annual- 
weed stage and has been taken over by perennial 
plants and, later, by trees, it contains few hay- 
fever weeds. Aboriginal America had few rag- 
weeds and no hay fever. What annuals there 
were, were thinly scattered and had to release 
vast quantities of pollen per plant to keep the 
species going. Obviously the amount of pollen 
necessary varies directly as the square of the 
mean distance between the plants. Now that 
these plants as a result of man-made circumstances 
are allowed to grow in huge thickets, they continue 
to pour out the same amount of pollen per plant as 
before, which means an astronomically increased 
total pollen output, Man developed immunity 
to the normal density — but not to the present sort 
of barrage. Hence hay fever and asthma. 

The ragweeds and the other annuals have in re- 
cent years spread swiftly along roadsides into 
areas formerly free from hay fever. I know a re- 
sort town in New York State whose Chamber of 
Commerce a few years ago was advertising it as 
free from ragweed, when the stuff was sprouting 
all over totvn out of cracks in the sidewalks, A 
similar state of affairs has been reported from 
Michigan. So the states spend money to extend 
good roads farther into the backwoods ; the 
allergies flock along these roads to escape the 
pollens; and, since nothing was done about plant- 
ing the cuts and fills and shoulders, the ragweeds 
march quietly after the allergies. 

Perhaps the most dramatic weed of all is the 
common hemp. Cannabis sativa. It is both a 
cultivated plant and an obnoxious weed — for it 
has two products, one useful and the other highly 
dangerous. The first is a rope fiber, now largely 



replaced by Manilla hemp and jute, which come 
from quite different plants. The other product is 
the narcotic drug cannabin known to its devotees 
by the various names of hashhish, marijuana, 
bhang, gunga, charras, and kif. 

Hemp is a species of nettle, originally from 
the temperate zone of Asia. According to Hero- 
dotus it was used as a narcotic by the ancient 
Scythians of what is now southern Russia. 

In the eleventh century a Persian Moslem 
sectary named Hasan-i-Sabbah founded a secret 
order which made spectacular use of cannabin. 
Hasan got control of the mountain fortress of 
Alamut and organized his followers into a sort 
of private Gestapo which systematically bumped 
off the enemies of the sect in Persia and Syria. 
The crusader Conrad of Montferrat was killed 
this way, not, as shown in Mr. DeMille’s late 
movie, “The Crusades”, by Saladin, 

When the sect caught a recruit, Hasan or his 
successor would explain that absolute obedience 
would assure the sectary of immediate translation 
to Paradise at death. To prove his words the 
“Old Man of the Mountain” would have the recruit 
put into a hashish-trance. When he awoke he 
was in Paradise, sure enough: the best Paradise 
that the Old Man could stage, complete with 
houris. When the recruit had enjoyed himself 
in the appropriate manner, he was put under the 
drug again and brought back to earth. The sect 
worked their men up to such a pitch of blind 
obedience that a man would instantly kill him- 
self at the orders of a superior. The members 
of the order were called hashishin, whence “assas- 
sin”. The Assassins enjoyed their reign of terror 
for a century and a half, until the Mongol prince 
Hulagu Khan ended the nuisance by capturing 
the supposedly impregnable Alamut and killing 
all the Assassins he could catch — some twelve 
thousand. 

Since then the hemp has spread all over Eurasia 
and, lately, to North America, In New York 
City it occurs as a back yard weed. One lady 
with a hedge made of the stuff wondered why 
certain people kept picking pieces of it, until 
she found out what it was. The New York police 
have had added to their already heavy respon- 
sibilities the duty of watching for and pulling 
up hemp-plants, 

Herodotus to Hulagu to Harlem — Cannabis 
sativa has come a long way. Perhaps if Richard 
Farnsworth had known of its history, and of the 
stories of the house sparrow and the Hamburg 
water system, he would not have disappointed 
Professor Glomp by ignoring the wild life under 
his nose. Perhaps one of my readers will some 
day have a chance to profit by his example. 



THE END. 




67 



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68 



STARTING POINT 

By Raymond F. Jones 

• When space flight's been reduced to railroad schedules, 
and there's no more advances to be made — then they won't 
need the pioneer type, the kind that can see meanings beyond 
the face value of things! Like the meaning of "starting point" — 

Illustrated by Kolliker 



To begin with, the race looked like nothing more 
than one of those crazy college kid stunts that you 
can read about in histories of a hundred years ago. 
But the Ajax Co. shouldn’t mind about that since 
they got the best astrogator in the system out of 
the lunatic stunt. 

The first I heard about it was one of those hot, 
restless August days when all my classes had 
seemed to have nothing but super-vacuum between 
the ears. 

I was sighing and feeling thankful that the one 
coming up was the last for the day when Bill 
Dolan sauntered in with a sheet of paper in his 
hands. 

“Look at this, professor. It’s a cinch for Tech. 
One of us is bound to walk off with the cat’s 
cream. Open to all seniors of accredited institu- 
tions. That’s us.” 

“Let me see that!” 

I almost tore the paper from his grasp. This 
was the one thing I had been dreading all summer. 
Trying to turn out at least one batch of graduates 
that could at least take a ship from Earth to the 
Moon without cracking up. And now some cheap- 
skate, wildcat outfit was trying to get free pub- 
licity and break up my fall graduations. 

The sheet was conservative and truthful enough 
in beginning. 

Rocket lines throughout the system are vitally in need 
of expert pilots and astrogators. Into the hands of these 
men we place thousands of lives and millions of dollars’ 
worth of property every year. There are not enough 
men of the right caliber to fill the vital posts of space 
navigation. 

In an effort to discover more such men we make the 
following offer which we believe, because of its novelty 
and its demand for skill and daring, will attract the 
future aces of the void. 

We propose a prize of fifty thousand dollars and a 
position of permanent nature which the company to the 
pilot who finishes first in our asteroid race. 



The race consists simply of riding an asteroid from 
any approved starting point through the orbit of any 
shape about the Sun and back to the starting point — 

“By all the little stars of space,” I snapped, 
“what won’t they think of next?” 

Bill Dolan looked dismayed. “You don’t — ” 

“No, I don’t! And any Tech man who figures 
on monkeying with any fool idea of that kind can 
just forget about graduating!” 

Bill looked hesitantly at the announcement, then 
smiled a little uncertainly. Just as the class bell 
rang he leaned down and whispered, “Just the 
same, professor. I’ll bet you wish you were young 
enough to enter.” 

If he only knew! I looked wearily at the assem- 
bled men. Oh, it was good enough, trying to 
prepare men for the void. When that meteor colli- 
sion had put me permanently out of commission, I 
felt that teaching what I had learned was the best 
way of serving the mushrooming science of space 
travel. 

But it was still a hell of a job for the man who’d 
flown the American Girl on her maiden trip to 
Mars, who’d run her the last half million miles 
with empty fuel tanks and set her down without 
a biunp. 

After class I put a few rolls of microfilm in my 
pockets for some home study and hurried out. The 
old pain behind my eyes was coming back. I’d 
have to lie down soon. 

Outside, all the class was still gaping at the 
bulletin board. I didn’t have to ask what they 
were looking at. 

“Come on, fellows, break it up!” I said. 

They all turned. Jim Hawkins, the red-headed 
half of our football twins, wore a puzzled frown 
on his good-natured face. 

“What do you mean, professor? It’s a perfect 




STARTING POINT 



69 




set-up for us. They furnish all the equipment, 
motors, safety monitors — ” 

“Just the same, no graduate of this year’s astro- 
gation class is going to be in that cockeyed race.” 
“Is that final, professor?” 

“Yes, that’s final.” 

“I don’t think the prexy will back you up.” 
“Aw, look here, fellows. Let’s not get on oppo- 
site sides of the fence over this thing. I’ve seen 
these things before and know what they are — just 
a lot of cheap publicity — ” 

“The Ajax p-people aren’t that k-kind.” 

I turned to stare at Sparky Bunting, a whiz on 
figures, but all weak on anything over three syl- 
lables. The Ajax Co.! That was a shock. I 
couldn’t imagine conservative, cautious Jack 
Bevens having anything to do with wild publicity 
stunts. 

“Did you say the Ajax people. Sparky?” 

“Yes, Jack B-B evens s-s-sent me these bulletins 
to post.” 

“Well, I hope you aren’t going off your center 
of gravity over this thing, too. Sparky.” 

“S-sure. I’m going to win, t-too.” 



“Sure he’s going out for it.” Bill Donlon slapped 
a big hand on Sparky’s shoulder. “The Asteroid 
Kid. That’s you, eh. Sparky?” 

“Now, look here, fellows — ” I passed a hand 
over my eyes. Things were becoming blurry again. 

“You might as well give in, professor,” laughed 
George Hawkins. “We’re all in it together. Bet 
a new sport-model cruiser you wish you could go, 
too.” 

That was the trouble. They knew I’d have given 
a leg to go on some goofy jaunt like that if I’d 
been twenty years younger and spry as when I 
first got a first-class pilot’s license. 

“I’ll have a talk with Jack Bevens over the week 
end. We’ll decide Monday after I know what this 
is all about.” 

The Ajax Co. isn’t the largest in the system, 
but it’s the safest, fastest and most efficient run- 
thanks to my old friend Jack Bevens. 

That’s why I couldn’t figure out this so-called 
asteroid race. Bevens, as vice president in charge 
of general management, wasn’t one to put up with 
such things. 

I landed on the small, two-hundred-acre Ajax 
Field next day and inquired for Jack. He was 
busy in the office, but looked up with a grin when 
I walked in. 

“You’re late. Sit down. I expected you before 
this.” 

I sank down in one of his easy-chairs overlook- 
ing the broad field where the Mars express was 
just being rolled out. 

“That shows you’ve got a plenty guilty con- 
science over this silly stunt you’re sponsoring. 
What’s the gag?” 

“You know us,” said Jack. “Have we ever pulled 
anything yet just for the sake of publicity?” 

“That’s why I can’t figure it out. If it had been 
the Terrestrian Space Line or some other wildcat 
outfit, the picture would have made sense. What’s 
the answer?” 

“Pilots.” 

“Pilots? Great stars, rhan, there’re over a thou- 
sand licensed, qualified pilots on Earth and Mars 
right now looking for jobs. We’ll send out an- 
other fifteen in a couple of months.” 

“Licensed, but not qualified,” corrected Jack. 
“If they were, we wouldn’t have three flights ab- 
solutely grounded right now because we can’t find 
men to fly them.” 

“Why, that’s impossible, I never dreamed the 
situation was that bad. It isn’t that way with all 
the lines, is it?” 

Jack shrugged. “No, I believe we’re the only 
company that isn’t handling all the traffic it could 
take. If the rest of them can get the business, 
they take it up. But I wouldn’t let more than 
three of their best pilots take one of our ships to 
the ^''^oon and back.” 




70 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



“Their ships get through.” 

Again Jack shrugged. “Some of them. Last 
year twenty-three ships were lost in space. Only 
one of them was ours.” 

“It can’t be helped,” I said. “It’s always been 
that way before machines reached perfection. 
Losses come from defects in design and manu- 
facture, but the system thinks it’s ready for space 
flight in spite of that.” 

“Exactly, but unless space transportation 
reaches a certain percentage of success it’s com- 
mitting suicide by persisting in failure. It nearly 
happened that way in the early history of air 
transportation. It’s going to be the same here 
unless we stop it.” 

“But how are you going to stop it? Why was 
only one of those twenty-three losses yours?” 

“I told you. Pilots. When you’re short on ma- 
chines, you’ve got to be long on men — a certain 
type of men. When space travel reaches the stage 
where air travel is now there’ll be no more need 
of him. But, until then, only one breed of man is 
qualified to fly spaceships on regular runs.” 
“What type of man is that?” 

“You should know,” he smiled meaningly. 
"You’re — or, rather, you were — one of the last of 
them.” 

“Rubbish I” I snorted. “Why space transporta- 
tion has moved light-years beyond me. New de- 
velopments, new techniques, technical schools — ” 
“And you had to suffer through all the strain of 
cramming for your pilot’s exam while you tended 
water sprays in the hell holes of the first atomics 
that made hit-and-miss trips between here and 
Venus. You had to figure courses on the little out- 
of-line integrators those ships carried. And usu- 
ally they were so jammed up by the starting that 
you had to file the teeth of every gear in them to 
even figure the area of a square on them.” 

“Sure. The boys don’t have to do that now. 
They learn course plotting on decent machines. 
They don’t have to learn flying between watches 
in the engine rooms. They go to school.” 

Jack smashed a hand down on the top of the 
desk and shouted at me. “And that’s exactly why 
you could fly a ship and these damn little bottle- 
fed babies can’t!” 

“I suppose, then, I should quit my job and tell 
the boys to burn the school and get jobs on some 
decrepit freighters if they want to fly.” 

Jack had settled back in his chair again, but he 
grumbled, “It wouldn’t be a half bad idea at that.” 
After a moment, he went on. “Bill, every type 
of locomotion from a baby’s walking to space 
flight has gone through almost identical stages. 

“The first one is the inventive stage. It is brief 
and flares up like a nova only once every few cen- 
turies. It brings together in one mind or a very 
few minds the genius, and the physical and intel- 



lectual daring that are needed to blast away obso- 
lete techniques and replace them with something 
for which there is no technique.” 

“Space flight is out of that stage,” I reminded 
him. 

“Unfortunately, yes. The surge of invention is 
gone, but after that comes the pioneering stage 
when men with skill and courage adapt the new 
inventions to new frontiers. It was that way with 
the wagon — which turned into the automobile, the 
ship, the airplane. And it’s been that way with 
space flight. 

“In the pioneering stage, men aren’t sure of their 
machines, but they’re willing to gamble what they 
can take from, their own beings — skill, daring, 
courage — against the defects of their machines. 

“That’s the way it was with Columbus, Magel- 
lan, the American pioneers, Lindbergh, Byrd. It’s 
the way it’s always got to be.” 

“But space flight is beyond that! We’re on regu- 
lar schedules. We’re beyond the stage of fool- 
hardy idiots who’d try to fly between the Sun’s 
prominence like . . . like me.” 

Jack started to say something, then stopped, but 
his glance at me was almost pitying. It made me 
feel uncomfortable. 

“After this,” he finally went on, “comes the 
leveling out, the deadening stage of technical de- 
velopment. Oh, I know — ” He held up a hand 
against my protesting grunt. “I know this is 
essential if economic success is to result. But, 
nevertheless, in this last stage revolutionary in- 
ventions are suppressed, smothered out, and de- 
partures from established technique frowned upon. 
It is the era of schools to train men in. those 
techniques — schools to train men to obey books 
of rules and to put fences around their thinking. 
There is no more room for the pioneer, until some 
genius flashes through with an invention that ren- 
ders everything obsolete and clears the board 
again. 

“Each stage is as definite as if it had walls, and 
the men of one would be helpless in the others. 
What would Columbus have done at the helm of a 
transatlantic liner powered with super-atomics 
that would take him across in three days?” 

“He’d have been helpless, of course,” I said. 
“Because advancing techniques have rendered him 
obsolete.” 

“And how would the captain of one of our liners 
have reacted to Columbus’ suggestion that they 
sail the ocean for the first time in that tiny carack? 
What would your fine captain with all his techni- 
cal training have done at the helm of a little three- 
hundred-ton wooden ship?” 

“Why, he’d have had to learn a new technique 
to even sail it.” 

“Bah! You even reason like a college professor. 
You know damned good and well he’d have said 





STARTING POINT 



71 



the scheme was harebrained and been one of the 
first to kick Columbus out of town. And why? 
Because he doesn’t have the guts — intellectual or 
physical. Columbus was a pioneer. Your sea cap- 
tain of today is a technician. Each belong in 
their place, but when one tries to take the other’s 
command. Heaven help the crew and cargo.” 

“I still don’t see how all this reasoning led up 
to the asteroid race.” 

“Like this,” Jack snapped. “You and most of 
the rest of the public think space flight is in the 
technical stage. It isn’t. It’s right at that ticklish 
point of crossing from the pioneering stage to 
the technical. The next year will tell whether or 
not space flight is to leap ahead or be set back 
fifteen more years. It will progress if we can 
unearth the men.” 

“I still don’t see what’s the matter with the men 
we’ve got.” 

Jack was silent a moment, then he spoke ab- 
ruptly. “Bill, you and I have been friends long 
enough for me to tell you what’s wrong with you, 
haven’t we?” 

“Sure—” 

“You’ve gone highhat.” 

“Highhat!” 

“Maybe it’s not quite the word, but it’ll do. In 
front of your classes you’re just a little ashamed 
of your early training, of the fact you got it in 
the holds of those early scows, instead of in some 
fancy school. You’re just a whole lot ashamed of 
the fact that you had to get your job on the basis 
of that experience instead of on the basis of a 
flock of degrees tacked onto your name.” 

I know I must have turned a little pale. How 
could he have guessed the one thing that I had 
only sensed all these years — had not even been able 
to put into words myself. Yet I knew it was true. 

“I guess you’re right,” I finally said. 

“I’m afraid I am. But it’s all so unnecessary. 
Bill. You had far better training than you’ve ever 
given any of the men in your classes out of the 
books and theories you’ve boned up on. You 
haven’t even taught them the things you learned 
in those early days — things that still hold good in 
emergencies. You’re trying to turn out techni- 
cians. We’ve got to have pioneers for twenty 
more years. In thirty years we can use the kind 
of men you’re trying to give us, but not now. 

“Your pretty little technicians crack up as soon 
as they come across something that isn’t in the 
books. Hell, half the books haven’t even been 
written yet!” 

“This is kind of hard to take,” I said slowly. 
“Space flight has been my lifeblood ever since I 
was a kid and watched some of the first rockets 
streaking through the night on the way to the 
Moon. What can I do?” 

“Put every man of your class in our race. Bone 
them up, give them everything you ever learned — 



and throw your books away. Give us the winners 
in our race!” 

We looked at each other in silence as the sud- 
den bursting roar of the Mars express outside 
flared up. The thunder of the mighty engines 
shook the walls of the room. I shook my head and 
Jack smiled at me. Intuitively, almost, we both 
knew that one of the sixteen tubes was off timing 
a bare thousandth of a second. It gave a little 
harmonic rise and fall to the thunder. 

But it was swiftly brought into time and the 
ship took off. “We have a few pioneers left,” said 
Jack. “Not one of your technicians could have 
caught that misfire.” 

“I’ll see that you get some more pioneers,” I 
said, and left him. 

Every man in the class next day knew something 
was wrong. Jack’s talk had truly shaken me — 
shaken me, I hoped, out of the calm repose I had 
drifted into through years of preparing techni- 
cians for white-collar space flying. 

The class was uneasy. No one had dared ask 
about the race. 

“What would happen,” I said, suddenly, “if you 
found your ship three thousand miles from Ajax 
port and discovered you hadn’t enough fuel for 
the landing?” 

George Hawkins’ red hair immediately shook 
and his hand went up. “It couldn’t happen,” he 
said. “Those matters are foolproof today. The 
fuel is calculated by means of Kipling’s formula, 
safety margins are carried — ” 

“It has happened,” I cut in. 

He shifted uneasily. “Well — in that case, I 
guess you’d just be sunk.” 

So Jack Bevens was dissatisfied with the men I 
was sending him! 

“Can’t any of you men think of an answer?” I 
almost snarled. “You’re going out of here trying 
to find jobs piloting space ships carrying hundreds 
of thousands of dollars and hundreds of lives. And 
you’d smugly rely on your precious Kipling for- 
mula and scuttle your whole ship and cargo in a 
puddle of tears because your tanks are empty. It’s 
happened before — and can happen again — tanks as 
empty as your heads!” 

The room was quiet, then an uneasy shuifle. 

“I’m sorry, fellows,” I said. “It’s my fault. I’ve 
worn in a groove, taught you to rely on things that 
aren’t so. The Kipling formula is only a guess, a 
bad attempt to standardize before ships are ready 
for standardization. Once in five hundred times 
it fails and another disaster clogs progress.” 

“The Ajar C-C-Co. d-doesn’t use it.” 

I looked down at the rear of the class where 
gawky Sparky Bunting was quivering excitedly 
like a straining liner when its warm-up skips a 
beat. 

“How do you know that, Sparky?” 





72 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



“Jack B-Bevens told me. They vary it t-to meet 
conditions on each s-ship. And I know what I’d 
d-do in the c-c-case you mentioned.” 

The other men turned. Sparky was right so 
damned much it griped them, and so slow they 
were his friends, but I could see they expected 
him to make a fool of himself this time, 

“I’d rip out the Pyrogen linings of eight of the 
t-tubes — t-twelve, if necessary — and f-feed them 
t-to the motors.” 

Somebody snickered. Bert Morrow, a perfect 
little technician from his head to his toes, raised 
a hand. “What in the world good would that do?” 
“The amalgam would s-serve as f-fuel.” 

“What amalgam? You must’ve et something. 
Sparky.” 

Sparky flushed crimson and strode to the board. 
Swiftly he drew a maze of sketches and electronic 
equations. He took the rest of the class period 
explaining how the linings hoarded whole atoms 
of uranium in the vast spaces between the Pyrogen 
molecules — enough to land a ship or drive it a 
long way if the linings were old enough. 

When he finished, George reared up. “You can’t 
do it. The amalgam would be unsteady. You’d 
have to control the humidity spray by hand. No 
man could be expected to do that!” 

I smiled a little. On the old scows of twenty 
years ago that had been a part of the regular 
routine because the automatics were so cranky. 
And then there’d been the American Girl. But 
no one except Jack Bevens knew about that. 

“How about it. Sparky? Could it be done if a 
man had what it takes?” 

“You t-tell us what happened t-to all the old 
t-tubes that were carried as s-spares on the Ameri- 
can G-Girl.” 

He grinned at me. 

Each man was to select his own asteroid. Any 
disputes were to be settled by going out and 
staking a claim. 

With the millions of asteroids in the Solar Sys- 
tem, there was little chance of two men picking the 
same one. But I might have expected Bert Mor- 
row to be the one to raise the devil. He challenged 
George Hawkins’ claim to 468. George was about 
to tell him to go take a mercury bath and let him 
have 468. It was no better than a dozen others 
nearby. But he caught my eye and I must have 
telepathed what I was thinking because he whirled 
on Bert. 

“All right, you dirty little chiseler, come out 
and get it!” 

George beat him there by four hours. 

The rules stated that the asteroid could be no 
less than fifty feet in diameter. No more than 
four Desmond atomics could be mounted on it, 
feeding sixteen tubes. 

The only requirement was to round the Sun and 



return to the starting point. The only restrictions 
were those prescribed by safety. Minimum limits 
were put on food and fuel and personal equipment, 
and a maximum on fuel to prevent overloading. 
Otherwise, it was up to the private ingenuity of 
each man to make the best and fastest ship he 
could of his little world. 

With the Ajax Co. pouring over a million dol- 
lars out for motors and equipment to be furnished 
free, it was little wonder over half the registered 
pilots on Earth and a score from Mars entered. 
There were six hundred and twenty in all. 

Jack was a little worried over the Martians. 
“Damn! I hadn’t counted on them. I sure hope 
none of those birds walk off with first place.” 
“Don’t worry about that. They’re so slow that 
even Sparky Bunting makes them look like 
anaemic glaciers.” 

“Sparky Bunting — he’s entering, isn’t he? He 
came in to see me several times after I announced 
the race. Seemed a little worried about the rules. 
He said they seemed ambiguous. I told him the 
ten best corporation lawyers of three planets drew 
them up.” 

I laughed. “Well, you can bet that if Sparky 
says they’re ambiguous, they’re ambiguous. Did 
he say any more?” 

“No. Just that he thought he understood them 
all right, but he was afraid a lot of the other boys 
might get off the track.” 

“Good old Sparky. He’ll argue his rating on the 
day of judgment. I wish we could keep him from 
entering, though. I’m afraid he’ll get hurt.” 
“Well, he won’t run into anybody, that’s a cinch. 
Have you seen the asteroid he picked?” 

I nodded. “The biggest one of the lot. A new 
one over two hundred feet in diameter. While 
the rest of the boys are chipping theirs down to 
the minimum limits. Sparky picks the biggest one 
he can find. And it’s got the cockeyedest orbit — 
if any — that you ever saw. It’s so far off the lanes 
that it hasn’t been given a belt number, even.” 
“Oh, yes it has,” grinned Jack. “I had it plotted 
when Sparky picked it. They’ve decided to put 
it in the thirteenth level. And its number there 
was 131312.” 

“One more and it’d have been kind of unlucky.” 
“You haven’t heard what Sparky did to it?” 
“No. What?” 

“He cut it in two. That makes his half come out 
just right— 131313.” 

I rode over to Sparky’s isolated asteroid, vainly 
trying to figure out why he’d picked such a mon- 
ster, then cut it in two. 

The two halves were swinging erratically 
around each other about sixty million miles from 
the Sun, a little farther on the average than the 
rest of the asteroids chosen. 

Sparky’s little blue eyes were friendly and ex- 



STARTING POINT 



73 



pectant as I set the magnetic grapple and climbed 
out o£ the cruiser on his hemispherical world. 
A wave of dizziness reminded me of the doctor’s 
warning to stay out of space. 

“Welcome to 131313,” Sparky grinned. “S-s-some 
address, hey, p-professor?” 

“O. K., if you’re not fussy about numbers.” 

The curved side had been smoothed roughly and 
coated with a quarter inch of hard carbon. The 
flat side had a mirror-polished coating that could 
be seen for ten thousand miles in space. The dark 
side was laced with the welded bracing that 
Sparky had spread out to support his tubes, but 
the motors were not even installed, let alone ad- 
justed and tested. He was way behind most of the 
others who were ready to start. 

“How do you 1-1-like it, p-professor?” 

“Well — ah, it’s a little unusual. Most of the 
others picked smaller asteroids and put the tubes 
around a circumference and parallel to their line 
of flight.” 

“No s-s-stability,” Sparky snorted. “Come over 
here.” 

His inflated figure waddled away and disap- 
peared over the sharp horizon of his miniature 
world. I followed to the middle of the rounded 
side where our magnetic soles held us flat against 
the domed surface. 

“You c-can’t p-push these asteroids. You have 
to p-pull them. I’m p-putting the t-tubes on this 
s-side ahead of the c-center of gravity. That’s 
why I c-cut it in t-two— t-to s-shift the c-center 
of gravity farther back from the equator.” 

That was good. None of the others had thought 
of that. Of course, some of them had arranged 
their tubes in cockeyed patterns to try to get the 
most stable effect. One fellow who used to fly 
for Ajax even cut holes through the asteroid and 
put the head of the tubes near the nose of the 
asteroid, but at the cost of greatly weakening his 
small ball. Sparky had hit on the one most effec- 
tive way of shifting centers, even though he still 
had four times the mass to propel that most of 
the others had. I could see the longer radius of 



thrust would give him a more sensitive control in 
altering his orbit, however. 

It was such a nice job that he was doing, yet I 
knew he’d never get away on time. He didn’t have 
a chance to win. I thought I had a brilliant idea. 

“It’s a nice job, Sparky,” I said, “but you’ll have 
to step on it. They take off day after tomorrow 
and you’ll never make it with all the work you 
have yet. Look, Sparky, why don’t you go in with 
one of the other boys? Invite George Hawkins to 
help. The two of you would be a cinch to win, 
and there’s no rule against pairs. Several of the 
fellows are doing it.” 

I was totally unprepared for the storm that 
broke. Sparky just looked at me for a long min- 
ute. He stood like a statue, his suit grotesquely 
bulging against the carbon void. The Sun glinted 
hard on the glass of his helmet as the asteroid 
turned over. 

Abruptly he shouted at me. “Get off!” 

“Sparky!” 

“Get off! You’re just 1-like all the rest. You 
think I’m s-slow, t-too s-slow to c-catch c-cold. 
Well, I’ll s-show you! I’ll win, I t-tell you. I’ll 
win!” 

He went on more deliberately now. “S-sure, I 
know what all the reporters call me — the Asteroid 
Kid. S-slow S-Sparky, the Asteroid Kid. I’m 
mascot of the race. But I’ll s-show you ! Now get 
off!” 

“Please, Sparky — ” 

“I thought you were my f-friend. But you’re 
the s-same as the others. Leave me alone. I got 
work t-to d-do.” 

He turned and stumbled away, nearly crying 
with rage. There was nothing I could do but go 
back to the ship and take off. But of one thing 
I was certain : Sparky couldn’t be allowed to enter 
the dangerous race in that frame of mind. Cer- 
tainly no man in such emotional turmoil could 
ever become a pilot. 

Jack Bevens had other ideas, as usual. 

“Why kick him out?” he shrugged. “If you do. 




74 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



it’ll embitter him for life. If he loses, he may 
come back fighting, anyway.” 

“It he loses! Why the kid hasn’t got a chance. 
He’s so stirred up inside that he couldn’t plot a 
curve across the street, let alone to the Sun and 
back.” 

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that. Some of those 
old pioneers used to get hopping mad and go out 
and do something heroic before they cooled off.” 
“Pioneers!” I scoffed. “That hasn’t got any- 
thing to do with Sparky’s terrific inferiority com- 
plex.” 

“The Asteroid Kid might turn out to be the 
only pioneer in the lot. And that’s the purpose of 
the race, to dig some up.” 

I threw up my hands. “Well, Heaven help your 
line if Sparky’s the best you can find.” 

“I’m serious. Bob. What is a pioneer, anyway?” 
“You’re asking the riddles.” 

“He’s nothing more than a dissatisfied man who 
doesn’t fit where he is and who decides to find a 
new place where he does fit. Let’s look at some 
of the boys out there. Bert Morrow, not much of 
a misfit, is he?” 

“Hardly. Enough money to get along, a good 
place on the football squad, easygoing in company 
— and a technician.” 

“Right. A man to stick by the books. But he’ll 
never make a go of it in space flight. He’d be a 
whiz of an airlines pilot, though. Why don’t you 
tip him off? 

“Then take the Hawkins twins. Slow and stea’dy, 
though hard hitting. The redhead likes to kick 
up a little fuss now and then, but flash a book of 
rules in his face and even he calms down. It’s 
like that with all of them. I’ve studied every man 
entered in the race. Perfect technicians — but no 
pioneers. 

“Except Sparky — he’s the man who doesn’t fit. 
Of course, a misfit isn’t necessarily a pioneer. But 
if Sparky’s got the rest of what it takes he’s the 
only man we can afford to have win this race.” 
Jack Bevens was right about a lot of things, but 
I couldn’t go with him that far. 

“You’re totally, absolutely and completely 
crazy,” I told him before I walked out. 

The race was creating more excitement on Earth 
than I had realized. The Tri-planet Network had 
arranged to cover the entire contest, sending news 
ships along to transmit continuous pictures of the 
race. 

It was a holiday for the bookies. This was the 
first contest of any kind in recent years to attract 
bets since interest in football, boxing and horse- 
racing had become almost nonexistent. 

Jack and I were waiting tensely in his office a 
few hours before the beginning of the race. News 
ships had been flashing shots of the Ajax plants, 
the asteroids and everything else in the system. 



Now it was about time to go. 

“Weeks of preparation are now complete and 
the zero hour of this thrilling, unprecedented race 
has arrived,” the announcer gushed. “We flash 
you a few shots of the favorites just before start- 
ing time. 

“Here is Gamor, the Martian, who says he 
doesn’t care for the job offered, but is out for the 
cash to buy himself a nice funeral. Sentimental, 
these Martians. Good luck, Gamor. 

“Here are the Hawkins twins who say that 
whichever wins, the prize money goes back to the 
folks at home who put them through school. 

“And now, just a moment and we’ll flash you the 
Asteroid Kid, who s-s-swears he’s going t-t-to 
s-s-show you a thing or t-two. We give you 
Sparky Bunting.” 

Jack was grinding his teeth and swearing bit- 
terly at the announcer as they flashed Sparky’s 
ship on the screen. It showed the black, rounded 
side, but no Sparky. The ship went to the flat, 
silvered side and it was likewise barren. 

“Well, something seems to be wrong, ladies and 
gentlemen; it looks as if the race mascot got cold 
feet and deserted his ship at the last minute. It’s 
time to start, but no Sparky Bunting in sight. 

“We’re ready. The ten-second time signals are 
going out to the boys from the observatory now. 
Five seconds now, four, three, two, one — There 
they go!” 

Space was lit for thousands of miles by flashes 
and pin points of light as hundreds of Desmond 
atomics came to life and the grotesque vehicles 
began accelerating in their orbits. 

But Jack wasn’t watching that. He was swear- 
ing violently, ending up with, “By all the little 
stars of space, what does that kid Sparky mean 
by walking out on us like this?” 

In the dimness of the receiving room an unex- 
pected voice came from near the door. “Are you 
s-s-speaking t-to me?” 

“Sparky!” 

I think that’s as close as I ever saw Jack Bevens 
come to evaporating in a blue vapor. 

“Great suns of space!” he bawled. “Why aren’t 
you out there on your way?” 

Sparky looked befuddled. “I d-didn’t s-see any- 
thing in the rules that s-said we had to s-start at 
a certain time.” 

“No, but by definition the winner is the one who 
finishes in the shortest time. You haven’t got a 
chance now.” 

“D-d-don’t worry about me getting s-started. 
I won’t be d-doing that for another three d-days.” 

For once Jack couldn’t find words. 

“Where I s-start from is where I got t-t-to 
c-come back t-to. In three more d-days the aste- 
roid will be at the p-point easiest t-to return 
t-t-to. 

“B-b-but what I c-came b-back f-for was t-to 




STARTING POINT 



75 



ask if I c-could take a good s-supply of s-pare 
t-tubes along. I f-figure I might need s-some.” 
“Sure — go out to the supply shed and get all 
you want. There’s no regulation one way or the 
other on them, but get out and get going.” 

“Yes, s-sir. And I’ll win. I’ll s-s-show you!” 
After five minutes I broke the silence that fol- 
lowed Sparky’s leaving. “Well, that’s that. You 
might as well jerk him out of the race now and 
keep him from getting hurt. His winning chances 
to forty-eight decimal places total zero.” 

Jack wasn’t hearing me. He was scanning an 
asteroid chart on the wall and muttering to him- 
self. “The place where you start from is the place 
you have to come back to. That kid’s going to 
drive me crazy with the new angles he springs on 
this race. First, he bites off half an asteroid, and 
loads it down with spare tubes that he couldn’t 
possibly have any use for, and then starts three 
days late.” 

The phone rang just as I was about to leave and 
Harry Jackson, supply foreman, appeared on the 
plate. “Say, Jack, this kid Sparky was just in 
here. He said you’d O. K.’d his taking up a supply 
of spare tubes. I told him to go ahead and load 
up while I went out for a few minutes. When I 
came back, he was just a sunbeam in the sky and 
two dozen old tubes we just ripped out of the 
Phobos are gone. If that kid can’t tell old tubes 
from new, he oughta be grounded. But, anyway, 
you’d better catch hold of him. If he tries to use 
those tubes — ” 

“It’s too much for me,” Jack sighed and slammed 
the phone switch down. “I suppose you realize 
he’s got just twice the fuel load that anyone else 
has, counting the amalgam in those old tubes. But 
I guess he just made a mistake.” 

“Mistake, nothing,” I said. “He knows what 
that amalgam will do, and he’s got it perfectly 
legally. You can’t touch him.” 

“No, but I wonder what he’s going to do with it.” 
“You’d better just drag him out before you find 
out.” 

We didn’t try to communicate with Sparky dur- 
ing the next three days. In the meantime, blond 
George Hawkins had taken the lead and was tear- 
ing up space like a comet going to a fire. He had 
the little asteroid up to a flat ninety miles a sec- 
ond. Betting was heavy on him as he increased 
his lead, but to those who watched closely it 
looked as if he were trying to set a pace that 
would lead the others to burn up their fuel and 
force them to a wider orbit around the Sun, leav- 
ing the race to Jim who was creeping along at a 
bare forty miles a second, but was steadily ac- 
celerating. The leaders were laying their course 
to skin Mercury’s orbit. 

Jack was gnawing his knuckles over the fact 
that three of the Martians were lined up right be- 



hind George Hawkins, but were taking a nice, 
easy, fuel-conserving pace. Bert Morrow was lay- 
ing a long, conservative curve that wouldn’t take 
him within five million miles of Mercury’s orbit — 
that was the limit that space liner technicians 
were taught. 

Jim Dolan was tailing the Martians and doing 
just what all the rest were — taking easy, safe 
orbits far from the Sun, carefully balancing fuel 
against weight — by Kipling’s formula. 

“You see, it’s like I told you,” Jack pointed out 
on the astroplate, a viewscreen of his own design 
which showed the positions and movements of 
heavenly bodies. The tiny lights that represented 
the racers crawled almost imperceptibly among the 
planets. 

“Not a one of them showing any imagination 
about the whole thing. Look where Mercury will 
be when most of them get there. With just a little 
hook in their trajectories, they could dive deep 
in her orbit and let her attraction give them a neat 
free kick in the pants. And not a one of them 
headed that way.” 

“Dive into Mercury’s orbit!” I exclaimed. 
“Man, what do you expect the kids to do? Fry 
themselves?” 

“Have you forgotten when you used to try to 
play tag with the Sun’s prominences? And, be- 
sides, more of them could have shown the sense 
that Sparky *did in painting his asteroid black on 
one side and polishing the other to a mirror. 

“And look at this. Instead of trying to do an 
ellipse about the Sun, how about doing a figure 
eight and taking advantage of — ” 

He suddenly broke off and turned white as a 
parabolic mirror in sunlight. “Great sons of space, 
that’s what the kid — Bob, has he started yet?” 

“A couple of hours ago. I heard on the news- 
cast that he’d sent his time and position in to the 
timekeeper.” 

Jack put in a call to the nearest safety monitor- 
ing ship. 

“Yes, the Asteroid Kid finally took off, and what 
a cockeyed curve he’s running. You better pull 
him out and disqualify him before he kills him- 
self. 

“The crazy kid, instead of curving up over the 
asteroid field, he’s smashing through the thick of 
them at nearly four gees. He’ll bust a gut even 
if he don’t hit another asteroid.” 

“Never mind that. Follow him and keep your 
eye on him.” 

“Follow? Not at that clip! Me, I learned how 
to fly—” 

Jack turned back to the astroplate, then did some 
swift calculating with his slip stick and the al- 
manac. 

“The asteroid field’s not very thick there at the 
worst. He’ll be through it on a long slant if he 
holds to his course. I think in a few days you’re 




76 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



going to see an exhibition of plain and fancy Sun 
dodging that’d given you cold feet in the best of 
your days!” 

The reporters thought Sparky’s finally getting 
under way was a good joke. They spread head- 
lines of “The Asteroid Kid Takes Off.” Bookies 
began taking two-hundred-to-one shots on him. I* 
even went out and put a five on him myself. 

But the reporters began to laugh on the other 
side of their faces when Sparky put on the ac- 
celeration. Burning fuel recklessly and enduring 
a pressure of nearly five hundred pounds he tore 
straight into the Sun at an insane acceleration. 

He had to let up after nearly a day, but he kept 
the acceleration up to two and a half gees without 
weakening. It was obvious that he was diving so 
far inside Mercury’s orbit that dozens of pilots 
called Jack on their regular runs to ask if Sparky 
was out of control. 

And for the first time people woke up to the 
fact that the race involved actual danger. It was 
astounding the way the change came about. Like 
a grotesque pet, Sparky changed overnight from 
an interstellar joke to the concern of the whole 
Solar System. The reporters that had laughed 
loudest began to demand that Jack stop him. 

The other contestants were bewildered. They 
knew they’d be out of fuel before they were three- 
fourths of the way through if they tried to match 
that acceleration. When Sparky was up to a hun- 
dred and twenty miles per second he cut the ac- 
celeration to zero, but his direction was suicidal. 
He was heading for a solar bull’s-eye. 

The Public Opinion Council was not slow in 
sending a delegation to Jack. 

“You’ve got to stop that boy!” the leader, a fat 
little man in his fifties, demanded. 

Jack motioned the quartet of obviously retired 
busybodies into his office to sit down. 

“Why must I stop him?” 

“Because any fool can see that he’s risking his 
life. And for what? Nothing but an insane race 
to accomplish exactly nothing!” 

“That’s what a lot of doddering old fogies said 
a long time ago about a young man who flew 
a flimsy little ship across the ocean the first time 
alone, and about a young woman who tried to fly 
around the world and lost her life because she 
gambled too much.” 

The pompous little man grew red in the face and 
started bouncing up and down in his chair. 

“And that’s where you belong ! Back in the bar- 
barous days of daredevil air flights. People like 
you should be penned up until you learn that this 
is a scientific age. What do you think progress is 
for if it isn’t to deliver man from barbarism like 
that? We don’t have to risk our lives like that 
any more; therefore, why should we do it?” 

“To keep from growing old and fat and spongy 



between the ears,” said Jack slowly. “And now, if 
that’s all, gentlemen, you may excuse yourselves.” 

They stormed out with threats that he’d hear of 
them again. 

“You can’t let the kid go on like this,” I told 
Jack. “Regardless of what tricks he may have' up 
his sleeve he can never pull out of that dive if he 
goes much farther. Why don’t you send one of 
the safety ships after him while there’s still time?” 

“Why should I? If I forced him to leave the 
asteroid now, he’d succumb to the humiliation for 
the rest of his life. If he loses his life, it’ll be a 
far happier end for him. In an age of contented 
cows like that herd that just left, he’s a miserable 
misfit. I can’t deny him the most fundamental of 
all a pioneer’s rights — the right to risk his life to 
prove a point or discover a truth.” 

“You know what the public will do to you if that 
happens?” 

“That isn’t important.” 

Jack strolled over to the screen that showed the 
crawling asteroids. 

“Sparky isn’t headed for the Sun. He’s got a 
couple of parsecs radius on his path that will carry 
him past the Sun. If he’s figured his velocities and 
gravities right, his terrific speed will narrow his 
solar orbit and save twenty percent of the path the 
other boys are taking. In addition, he’s going in 
the opposite direction they are, taking advantage 
of the motion of the Sun itself, which is an ap- 
preciable factor.” 

“Well, all I’ve got to say is it sure isn’t in the 
books.” 

“But isn’t it about the way you’d have done it 
fifteen or twenty years ago?” 

Jack hadn’t counted on the soaring public in- 
dignation that was giving us bad publicity. 

As long as the public had thought of the race 
as merely a harmless lark to be watched and 
wagered on, they had no objections, but as soon 
as danger appeared, they began to squeal. 

It was ample proof of Jack’s thesis that we had 
become a world of technicians and pioneers were 
dead dodos. Travel had become so comfortable in 
even the remotest corners of the Earth that any- 
thing dangerous seemed atavistic. Actually, this 
reaction was no more than the expression of the 
fears and cowardice that had been bred by so many 
years of ease. We were in a sorry state mentally 
and physically. 

Most of the people who stood around the screens 
waiting for news of Sparky were like the anxious 
mother who awaits her child coming down from a 
tree so she can spank the daylights out of him. 
But there was a healthy sign in the eyes of the few 
who watched with the admiration that expresses a 
vicarious thrill in the adventures of someone else. 

They held their breaths as Sparky shot deeper 
and deeper into Mercury’s orbit. Gradually, Jiis 





STARTING POINT 



77 



little pin point of a world was lost in the blinding 
aura of the Sun. The safety ship reported him 
invisible. 

Few of the racers had lost a night’s sleep. They 
could set their orbits with a reasonable degree of 
confidence and it wouldn’t hurt if an accident did 
send them a million miles off course. But we 
knew Sparky must be having endless days and 
nights made tense with the delicate maneuvering 
about the Sun. We could only imagine the parch- 
ing agony of the heat that seared even through the 
hundred feet of meteoric iron that was his pro- 
tection while he swung about the star. 

Jack had figured to the second when the safety 
ship should be able to spot the asteroid veering 
out of the brightness. The time came and passed. 
Jack nervously watched the screen and the hands 
of the clock, checked and rechecked his calcula- 
tions. At last he called the ship. 

“Can’t you see him? Try the infrared cameras 
again. You ought to be able to get a shadow of 
him somewhere by now,” 

There was nothing at the end of four more 
hours. Jack littered the floor with sheets of paper 
on which were scribbled fantastic equations and 
impossible curves. 

“You might as well face the only two possibili- 
ties,” I said. “Either he miscalculated and was 
drawn into the Sun or has run out of fuel and 
formed a perpetual orbit. It’s a million-to-one 
shot that he did form an orbit. But as long as 
there’s the possibility, you’ve got to send a res- 
cue — ” 

The crackle of the speaker interrupted. “Safety 
Monitor 28 calling Ajax — calling Jack Bevens.” 

Jack grabbed the phone. “Bevens. What is it?” 

“We’ve just sighted Asteroid 131313. Shall we 
pick him up?” 

Jack’s eyes lighted. “I knew he’d make it! 
Does he seem to be in trouble?” 

“Yes, sir. He appeared almost thirty degrees 
farther around the Sun than we expected. He’s 
now accelerating rapidly in a tangent from that 
point.” 

“Accelerating in a tangent from that point?” I 
bellowed. “Why the kid’s either helpless or dead 
and the ship’s out of control. He’s crossing his 
own path and heading in the wrong direction!” 

Jack looked wearily at the astroplate where 
Sparky’s ship once more showed up. Over half 
the racers had rounded the Sun now and were on 
their way back to their starting positions among 
the planets. The lone point of light marking 
Sparky’s ship was traveling nearly a hundred and 
seventy miles a second, according to the scale on 
the plate — nearly twice that of the nearest com- 
petitor. But Sparky was headed off at a broad 
angle that would take him millions of miles from 
his goal. 

“Overhaul him!” ordered Jack at last. 



AT lAST 
THE NEW 
1941-42 




W ITH six articles by leading figures in the aviation 
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The pictorial features cover such subjects as military 
flying, parachutes, private flying, the weather, manu- 
facturing, balloons, and light-plane flying. 

The three-view drawings are interesting at this time as 
a means of identifying various makes and types of mili- 
tary aircraft. 



Get your copy now — no flying enthusiast can afford to 
miss this all-star annual compiled by the editors of 
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78 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



I knew what that cost him. Gamor, the Mar- 
tian, was far in the lead now, according to the 
checking stations who reported the actual miles 
covered against the relative starting points in 
order to get a true picture of the positions of 
the racers. 

George Hawkins had run out of fuel as was 
expected, and Jim had been unable to maneuver 
around the Sun — for too many years we had been 
preaching to pilots to steer clear of the Sun. 

The race had done nothing but stir up adverse 
public opinion in a world too comfortable to exert 
itself and which resented anyone who did. And 
Jack’s hope of uncovering at least one pioneer had 
vanished. 

But the job of overhauling the asteroid was no 
snap for the safety ship. Sparky was again adding 
the gees and had raised his velocity near the two- 
hundred-miles-a-second point. 

Obviously, his regular fuel supply had long ago 
been exhausted. He must have been using the 
amalgam in the old tube linings. 

That was the puzzling thing. Use of the unsta- 
ble amalgam required constant, nerve-steady, 
manual control. And this went on for days before 
the safety ship even came within hailing distance. 
By this, it seemed impossible that Sparky could 
be dead or incapacitated. 

It was maddening to see him going at that rate 
in the wrong direction when he could have out- 
distanced the whole field had he been heading for 
his goal. 

An hour before the safety ship finally reached 
him. Sparky’s asteroid spun half around on its own 
axis, tubes cut to the minimum, then slowly began 
to build up again. Sparky was decelerating. 

Jack and I waited tensely while the captain of 
the safety ship closed in and boarded Sparky’s 
asteroid. After an endless waiting, the captain’s 
voice shouted, “Jack Bevens!’’ 

“Talking.’’ 

“The kid’s nearly dead. And it’s turned his 
mind, too. He’s clean loony. The first thing he 
said when he got out of his suit was, ‘Well, I 
showed ’em. Where’s the prize money? I won, 
didn’t I?’ The poor kid thinks he’s won. What’ll 
we do with him?’’ 

I felt my heart sinking. Jack looked sick. This 
was worse than if Sparky had fallen into the Sun. 

“Can he talk to me?’’ 

“I don’t know. He can barely walk or stand.” 

But in a moment Sparky’s face reeled into focus. 
I felt sick at the sight of him. His skin was 
burned raw from the intense solar radiation. Huge 
blisters formed bags of water on his hands and 
arms. Some had burst on his face and neck, leav- 
ing deep bleeding sores. His eyes were hollow- 
looking and bloodshot. 

He spoke in a rasping voice. “Hello, Mr. 
Bevens. Hello, professor. Well, I said I’d win. I 



showed you, didn’t I?” 

,His lips made a pitiful effort at a smile. An 
arm went about his shoulders to keep him from 
falling, but he brushed it off and faced us again. 

“I won, didn’t I?” 

There was something new and strange about his 
voice. Then I knew. His words came crisp and 
staccatolike. 

“Sparky! You don’t stutter any more.” 

“Not after hovering for days over the Sun, 
catching glimpses of flames leaping a hundred 
thousand miles into space, wondering if my speed 
was enough to keep me out of them. I stuttered 
because I was afraid. I’m not afraid of anything 
any more.” 

We stood looking at each other in silence for a 
long minute. Then Jack spoke. 

“I’m afraid you didn’t win, though. Sparky.” 

The kid paled under his burns. “Who was there 
first?” 

“No one has won yet, but you aren’t within 
twenty million miles of where you started.” 

“Not — But I am! I’ll show you my curves. I 
couldn’t have missed more than a thousand feet. 
I passed through my starting point a million 
miles back. I know I’m right. I corrected for 
everything — solar drift, galaxy drift and spin, the 
expansion and curvature of space. I had to win!” 

Jack suddenly gave a sound like a strangling 
chicken. Sparky was holding up the sheet out of 
his automatic course recorder. And on it, instead 
of the figure eight open at one end, which we knew 
had been Sparky’s course, his path showed as a 
nearly perfect ellipse. 

Jack’s figure stiffened and his face turned a little 
pale. Then his eyes glowed and he smashed a 
fist on the table. 

“Great suns of space! No wonder you said the 
rules were ambiguous. Sparky! You’ve done it! 
You’ve won!” 

Jack hunched over the board of the speedy 
cruiser nosing out to meet Sparky. 

I was busy in the cabin with grizzled old Doc 
Barnes, a white-haired old cutthroat who’d remove 
a man’s whole insides for nothing if he liked him. 

“I think it’s a phony myself. Gamor has already 
given intention of suing Ajax for fraud because 
the prize is going to Sparky. And a lot of others 
are going to do likewise. I’ll bet.” 

“I can’t help it,” I said. “The rules are plain. 
The winner has to return to the starting point. 
Sparky is the only one fulfilling that requirement. 
The others are off by twenty to thirty million 
miles.” 

The doctor was getting red in the face. “But 
you just admitted that Sparky’s path looks like a 
figure eight with a quarter of it cut away from 
one end. And yet you say he returned to the 
same place he started from — with the two ends of 



STARTING POINT 



79 



the clipped figure eight twenty million miles 
apart!” 

I loosened my collar and took up a fresh sheet 
of paper. “I said it just looks like a figure eight 
trimmed down on the end. Actually, it’s an ellipse. 
It’s a matter of point of view. The Sun is moving 
through space a little more than a million miles a 
day, carrying the planets and asteroids and every- 
thing else with it. Sparky picked a point of de- 
parture and return that was absolutely unmoving 
with respect to any reference points in the uni- 
verse that we can determine. 

“The Sun’s drift through space was taking the 
whole Solar System away from that spot at the 
rate of a million miles a day. When Sparky went 
back to it after twenty days, it was no wonder he 
looked to be twenty million miles off his course, 
because all the rest of us were thinking in terms 
of the Solar System as a reference. 

“Jack and all the lawyers who drew up the rules 
had in mind that the racers should return to the 
relative position in the Solar System from which 
they started. But read the rules yourself. They 
call for a return to the starting point. You can’t 
get around that. Sparky’s the only one who 
grasped the real meaning of it, and he tossed in a 
couple of corrections for space curvature and ex- 
pansion just to make doubly sure he got back to 
•the same spot. 

“Looking at it from the solar point of view. 
Sparky crossed his path and made a clipped figure 
eight. Actually, he made an ellipse and the rest 
of them traveled in spirals.” 

“Yes, I see all that,” grunted the doctor, “but 
how can an ellipse look like a figure eight trimmed 
on the end, and how can a spiral look like an 
ellipse from any point of view?” 

Credit goes to Doc Barnes for patching Sparky 
together again. For a long time we were afraid 
he was going to die of the burns, but he came out 
better than new. He had found a place where he 
stood alone, at the top. It gave him confidence 
without cockiness. And his exploits revived an 
old form of paganism that had been dead for many 
years — hero-worship. He passed that test, too. 

I was not surprised when he came around and 
told me that Jack had granted his request to take 
a ship to Pluto to test fuel consumptions on long 
hops. 

He grinned when he told mb about it. “I told 
Jack it was to test his fuel consumption formulas, 
but I guess the real reason is that I just wanted 
to go some place new.” 

“Sort of an unofficial pioneer for the company. 
Is that it?” 

“That’s funny. That’s just the title Jack sug- 
gested. I guess it’s the one that suits me. I don’t 
fit here. Out there — I belong, and I’m happy.” 
THE END. 





80 



MEDUSA 

By Theodore Sturgeon 

• "You," said the headquarters men, "will be the only sane man 
in the crew. The rest are madmen but don't know it, of course — 

Illustrated by Edd Cartier 



I wasn’t sore at them. I didn’t know what 
they’d done to me, exactly — I knew that some of 
it wasn’t so nice, and that I’d probably never be 
the same again. But I was a volunteer, wasn’t I? 
I’d asked for it. I’d signed a paper authorizing 
the department of commerce of the league to use 
me as they saw fit. When they pulled me out of 
the fleet for routine examinations, and when they 
started examinations that were definitely not 
routine, I didn’t kick. When they asked for 
volunteers for a project they didn’t bother to men- 
tion by name, I accepted it sight unseen. And 
now — 

“How do you feel. Rip?” old Doc Renn wanted 
to know. He spoke to me easylike, with his chin 
on the backs of his hands and his elbows on the 
table. The greatest name in psychoscience, and 
he talks to me as if he were my old man. Right 
up there in front of the whole psycho board, too. 

“Fine, sir,” I said. I looked around. I know 
all the doctors and one or two of the visitors. 
All the medicos had done one job or another 
on me in the last three years. Boy, did they put 
me through the mill. I understood only a fraction 
of it all — the first color tests, for instance, and 
the electro-co-ordination routines. But that tor- 
ture machine of Grenfell’s, and that copper helmet 
that Winton made me wear for two months — talk 
about your nightmares! What they were doing 
to or for me was something I could only guess at. 
Maybe they were testing me for something. 
Maybe I was just a guinea pig. Maybe I was in 
training for something. It was no use asking, 
either. I volunteered, didn’t I? 

“Well, Rip,” Doc Renn was saying, “it’s all over 
now — the preliminaries, I mean. We’re going 
ahead with the big job.” 

“Preliminaries?” I goggled. “You mean to tell 
me that what I’ve been through for the last three 
years was all preliminaries?” 

Renn nodded, watching me carefully. “You’re 
going on, a little trip. It may not be fun, but it’ll 
be interesting.” 



“Trip? Where to?” This was good news; the 
repeated drills on spaceship techiques, the re- 
fresher courses on astrogation, had given me a 
good-sized itch to get out into the black again. 

“Sealed orders,” said Renn, rather sharply. 
“You’ll find out. The important thing for you to 
remember is that you have a very important role 
to play.” He paused ; I could see him grimly iron- 
ing the snappiness out of his tone. Why in 
Canaan did he have to be so careful with me? 
“You will be put aboard a Forfield Super — the 
latest and best equipped that the league can fur- 
nish. Your job is to tend the control machinery, 
and to act as assistant astrogator no matter what 
happens. Without doubt you will find your posi- 
tion difficult at times. You are to obey your or- 
ders as given, without question, and without the 
use of force where possible.” 

This sounded screwy to me. “That’s all written 
up, just about word for word, in the ‘Naval Man- 
ual,’ ” I reminded him gently, “under ‘Duties of 
Crew.’ I’ve had to do all you said every time I 
took a ship out. Is there anything special about 
this one, that it calls for all this underlining?” 
He was annoyed, and the board shuffled twenty- 
two pairs of feet. But his tone was still friendly, 
half persuasive when he spoke. “There is definitely 
something special about this ship, and — its crew. 
Rip, you’ve come through everything we could 
hand you, with flying colors. Frankly, you were 
subjected to psychic forces that were enough to 
drive a normal man quite mad. The rest of the 
crew — it is only fair to tell you — is insane. The 
nature of this expedition necessitates our manning 
the ship that way. Your place on the ship is a 
key position. Your responsibility is a great one.” 
“Now — hold on, sir,” I said. “I’m not question- 
ing your orders, sir, and I consider myself under 
your disposition. May I ask a few questions?” 
He nodded. 

“You say the crew is insane. Isn’t that a broad 
way of putting it” — I couldn’t help needling him; 




81 




Rip looked at him uncomfortably. He was mad, of 
course — maybe— But why a shipful of madmen—? 



he was trying so hard to keep calm — “for a 
psychologist?” 

He actually grinned. “It is. To be more 
specific, they’re schizoids — dual personalities. 
Their primary egos are paranoiac. They’re per- 
fectly rational except on the subject of their par- 
ticular phobia — or mania, as the case may be. 
The recessive personality is a manic depressive.” 

Now, as I remembered it, most paranoiacs have 
delusions of grandeur coupled with a persecution 
mania. And a manic depressive is the “Yes 
master” type. They just didn’t mix. I took the 
liberty of saying as much to one of Earth’s fore- 
most psychoscientists. 

“Of course they don’t mix,” snapped Renn. “I 
didn’t say they did. There’s no interflowing of 
egos in these cases. They are schizoids. The 
cleavage is perfect.” 

I have a mole under my arm that I scratch when 
I’m thinking hard. I scratched it. “I didn’t know 
anything like that existed,” I said. Renn seemed 
bent on keeping this informal, and I was playing 
it to the limit. I sensed that this was the last 
chance I’d like to get any information about the 
expedition. 

“There never were any cases like that until re- 
cently,” said Renn patiently. “Those men came 
out of our laboratories.” 



“Oh. Sort of made-to-order insanity?” 

He nodded. 

“What on earth for, sir?” 

“Sealed order,” he said immediately. His man- 
ner became abrupt again. “You take off tomor- 
row.” You’ll be put aboard tonight. Your com- 
manding officer is Captain William Parks.” I 
grinned delightedly at this. Parks — the horny 
old fireater! They used to say of him that be 
could create sunspots by spitting straight up. 
But he was a real spaceman — through and 
through. “And don’t forget. Rip,” Renn finished. 
“There is only one sane man aboard that ship. 
That is all.” 

I saluted and left. 

A Forfield Super is as sweet a ship as anything 
ever launched. There’s none of your great noisy 
bulk pushed through the ether by a cityful of 
men, nor is it your completely automatic. “Eye- 
hope” — so called because after you slipped your 
master control tape into the automatic pilot you 
always said, “you’re on your way, you little hunk 
of tinfoil — I hope!” 

With an eight-man crew, a Forfield can outrun 
and outride anything else in space. No rockets — 
no celestial helices — no other such clumsy non- 
sense drives it. It doesn’t go places by going — 




82 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



it gets there by standing still. By which I mean 
that the ship achieves what laymen call “Universal 
stasis.” 

The Galaxy is traveling in an orbit about the 
mythical Dead Center at an almost incredible 
velocity. A Forfield, with momentum nullified, 
just stops dead while the Galaxy streams by. 
When the objective approaches, momentum is re- 
sumed, and the ship appears in normal space with 
only a couple of thousand miles to go. That is 
possible because the lack of motion builds up a 
potential in motion ; motion, being a relative thing, 
produces a set of relative values. 

Instead of using the terms “action” and “re- 
action” in speaking of the Forfield drive, we speak 
of “stasis” and “re-stasis.” I’d explain further but 
I left my spherical slide rule home. Let me add 
only that a Forfield can achieve stasis in regard 
to planetary, solar, galactic or universal orbits. 
Mix ’em in the right proportions, and you get re- 
sultants that will take you anywhere, fast. 

I was so busy from the instant I hit the deck 
that I didn’t have time to think of all the angles 
of this more-than-peculiar trip. I had to check and 
double-check every control and instrument from 
the milliammeter to the huge compound inte- 
grators, and with a twenty-four-hour deadline that 
was no small task. I also had to take a little 
instruction from a league master mechanic who 
had installed a couple of gadgets which had been 
designed and tested at the last minute expressly 
for this trip. I paid little attention to what went 
on around me ; I didn’t even know the skipper was 
aboard until I rose from my knees before the in- 
tegrators, swiveled around on my way to the con- 
trol board, and all but knocked the old war horse 
off his feet. 

“Rip! I’ll be damned!” he howled. “Don’t tell 
me — you’re not signed on here?” 

“Yup,” I said. “Let go my hand, skipper — I got 
to be able to hold a pair of needle noses for an- 
other hour or so. Yeah, I heard you were going to 
captain this barrel. How do you like it?” 
“Smooth,” he said, looking around, then bring- 
ing his grin back to me. He only grinned twice a 
year because it hurt his face ; but when he did, he 
did it all over. “What do you know about the 
trip?” 

“Nothing except that we have sealed orders.” 
“Well, I’ll bet there’s some kind of a honkatonk 
at the end of the road,” said Parks. “You and I’ve 
been on . . . how many is it? Six? Eight . . . 
anyway, we’ve been on plenty of ships together, 
and we managed to throw a whingding ashore 
every trip. I hope we can get out Aldeberan way. 
I hear Susie’s place is under new management 
again. Heh! Remember the time we — ” 

I laughed. “Let’s save it, skipper. I’ve got to 
finish this check-up, and fast. But, man, it’s good 
to see you again.” We stood looking at each other. 



and then something popped into my head and I 
felt my smile washing off. What was it that 
Dr. Renn had said — “Remember there’s only one 
sane man aboard!” Oh, no — they hadn’t put Cap- 
tain Parks through that! Why — 

I said, “How do you — feel, cap’n?” 

“Swell,” he said. He frowned. “Why? You 
feel all right?” 

Not right then, I didn’t. Captain Parks batty? 
That was just a little bit lousy. If Renn was right 
— and he was always right — then his board had 
given Parks the works, as well as the rest of the 
crew. All but me, that is. I knew I wasn’t crazy. 
I didn’t feel crazy. “I feel fine,” I said. 

“Well, go ahead then,” said Parks, and turned 
his back. 

I went over to the control board, disconnected 
the power leads from the radioscope, and checked 
the dials. For maybe five minutes I felt the old 
boy’s eyes drilling into the nape of my neck, but I 
was too upset to say anything more. It got very 
quiet in there. Small noises drifted into the con- 
trol room from other parts of the ship. Finally I 
heard his shoulder brush the doorpost as he walked 
out. 

How much did the captain know about this trip? 
Did he know that he had a bunch of graduates 
from the laughing academy to man his ship? I 
tried to picture Renn informing Parks that he 
was a paranoiac and a manic repressive, and I 
failed miserably. Parks would probably take a 
swing at the doctor. Aw, it just didn’t make sense. 
It occurred to me that “making sense” was a 
criterion that we put too much faith into. What 
do you do when you run across something that 
isn’t even supposed to make sense? 

I slapped the casing back on the radioscope, 
connected the leads, and called it quits. The 
speaker over the forward post rasped out, “All 
hands report to control chamber!” I started, stuck 
my tools into their clips under the chart table, 
and headed for the door. Then I remembered I 
was already in the control room, and subsided 
against the bulkhead. 

They straggled in. All hands were in the pink, 
well fed and eager. I nodded to three of them, 
shook hands with another. The skipper came in 
without looking at me — I rather thought he 
avoided my eyes. He went straight forward, faced 
about and put his hands low enough on the canted 
control board so he could sit on them. Seabiscuit, 
the quartermaster, and an old shipmate of mine, 
came and stood beside me. There was an em- 
barrassed murmur of voices while we all awaited 
the last two stragglers. 

Seabiscuit whispered to me, “I once said I’d 
sail clear to Hell if Bill Parks was cap’n of the 
ship.” 

I said, out of the side of my face, “So?” 




MEDUSA 



83 



“So it looks like I’m goin’ to,” said the ’Biscuit. 

The captain called the roll. That crew was 
microscopically hand picked. I had heard every 
single one of the names he called in connection 
with some famous escapade or other. Harry 
Voight was our chemist. He is the man who kept 
two hundred passengers alive for a month with 
little more than a week’s supply of air and water 
to work with, after the liner crossed bows with a 
meteorite on the Pleione run. Bort Brecht was 
the engineer, a man who could do three men’s 
work with his artificial hand alone. He lost it in 
the Pretoria disaster. The gunner was Hoch Mc- 
Coy, the guy who “invented” the bow and arrow 
and saved his life when he was marooned on an 
asteroid in the middle of a pack of poison-toothed 
“Jackrabbits.” The mechanics were Phil and Jo 
Hartley, twins, whose resemblance enabled them 
to change places time and again during the In- 
surrection, thus running bales of vital information 
to the league high command. 

“Report,” he said to me. 

“All’s well in the control chamber, sir,” I said 
formally. 

“Brecht?” 

“All’s well back aft, sir.” 

“Quartermaster ?” 

“Stores all aboard and stashed away, sir,” said 
the ’Biscuit. 

Parks turned to the control board and threw a 
lever. The air locks slid shut, the thirty-second 
departure signal began to sound from the oscil- 
lator on the hull and from signals here and in the 
engineers’ chamber. Parks raised his voice to be 
heard over their clamor. 

“I don’t know where we’re goin’,” he said, with 
an odd smile, “but” — the signals stopped, and that 
was deafening — “we’re on our way!” 

The master control he had thrown had accom- 
plished all the details of taking off — artificial 
gravity, “solar” and “Planetary” stases, air pumps, 
humidifiers — everything. Except for the fact that 
there was suddenly no light streaming in through 
the portholes any more, there was no slightest 
change in sensation. Parks reached out and tore 
the seals off the tape slot on the integrators and 
from the door of the orders file. He opened the 
cubbyhole and drew out a thick envelope. There 
was something in my throat I couldn’t swallow. 

He tore it open and pulled out eight envelopes 
and a few folded sheets of paper. He glanced at 
the envelopes and, with raised eyebrows, handed 
them to me. I took them. There was one ad- 
dressed to each member of the crew. At a nod 
from the skipper I distributed them. Parks un- 
folded his orders and looked at them. 

“Orders,” he read. “By authority of the Solar 
League, pertaining to destination and operations 
of Xantippean Expedition No. 1.” 

Startled glances were batted back and forth. 

AST— 6B 



Xantippe! No one had ever been to Xantippe! 
The weird, cometary planet of Beteguese was, and 
had always been, taboo — and for good reason. 

Parks’ voice was tight. “Orders to be read to 
crew by the captain immediately upon taking off.” 
The skipper went to the pilot chair, swiveled it, 
and sat down. The crew edged closer. 

“The league congratulates itself on its choice 
of a crew for this most important mission. Out 
of twenty-seven hundred volunteers, these eight 
men survived the series of tests and conditioning 
exercises provided by the league. 

“General orders are to proceed to Xantippe. 
Captain and crew have been adequately protected 
against the field. Object of the expedition is to 
find the cause of the Xantippe Field and to re- 
move it. 

“Specific orders for each member of the crew 
are inclosed under separate sealed covers. The 
crew is ordered to read these instructions, to 
memorize them, and to destroy the orders and 
envelopes. The league desires that these orders 
be read in strictest secrecy by each member of the 
crew, and that the individual contents of the en- 
velopes be held as confidential until contrary or- 
ders are issued by the league.” Parks drew a deep 
breath and looked around at his crew. 

They were a steady lot. There was evidence of 
excitement, of surprise, and in at least one case, 
of shock. But there was no fear. Predominantly, 
there was a kind of exultance in the spaceburned, 
hard-bitten faces. They bore a common glory, a 
common hatred, “That isn’t sensible,” I told my- 
self. “It isn’t natural, or normal, or sane, for eight 
men to face madness, years of it, with that joyous 
light in their eyes. But then — they’re mad al- 
ready, aren’t they? Aren’t they?” 

It was catching, too. I began to hate Xantippe. 
Which was, I suppose, silly. Xantippe was a 
planet, of a sort. Xantippe never killed anybody. 
It drove men mad, that was all. More than mad — 
it fused their synapses, reduced them to quivering, 
mindless hulks, drooling, their useless minds 
turned supercargo in a useless body. Xantippe 
had snared ship upon ship in the old days; ships 
bound for the other planets of the great star. The 
mad planet used to blanket them in its mantle of 
vibrations, and they were never heard from again. 
It was years before the league discovered where 
the ships had gone, and then they sent patrols to 
investigate. They lost eighteen ships and thirty 
thousand men that way. 

And then came the Forfield drive. In the kind 
of static hyperspace which these ships inhabited, 
surely they would pass the field unharmed. There 
were colonists out there on the other planets, de- 
pending on supplies from Sol. There were rich 
sources of radon, uranium, tantalum, copper. 
Surely a Forfield ship could — 




84 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 




But they couldn’t. They were the first ships 
to penetrate the field, to come out on the other 
side. The ships were intact, but their crews could 
use their brains for absolutely nothing. Sure, I 
hated Xantippe, Crazy planet with its cometary 
orbit and its unpredictable complex ecliptic. 
Xantippe had an enormous plot afoot. It was 
stalking us — even now it was ready to pounce on 
us, take us all and drain our minds — 

I shook myself and snapped out of it. I was 
dreaming myself into a case of the purple willies. 
If I couldn’t keep my head on my shoulders 
aboard this spacegoing padded cell, then who 
would? Who else could? 

The crew filed out, muttering. Parks sat on 
the pilot’s chair, watching them, his bright gaze 
flitting from face to face. When they had gone 
he began to watch me. Not look at me. Watch 
me. It made me sore. 

“Well?” he said after a time. 

“Well what?” I barked, insubordinately. 



“Aren’t you going to read your bedtime story? 
I am.” 

“Bed — oh.” I slit the envelope, unfolded my 
orders. The captain did likewise at the extreme 
opposite side of the chamber. I read: 

“Orders by authority of the Solar League, per- 
taining to course of action to be taken by Harl 
Ripley, astromechanic on Xantippean Expedition 
No. 1. 

“Said Harl Ripley shall follow the rules and 
regulations as set forth the naval regulations, up 
until such time as the ship engages the Xantip- 
pean Field. He is then to follow the orders of the 
master, except in case of the master’s removal from 
active duty from some unexpected cause. Should 
such an emergency arise, the command does not 
necessarily revert to said Harl Ripley, but to the 
crew member who with the greatest practicability 
outlines a plan for the following objective: The 
expedition is to land on Xantippe; if uninhabited, 
the planet is to be searched until the source of the 



MEDUSA 



85 



field is found and destroyed. If inhabited, the 
procedure of the pro-tem commander must be dic- 
tated by events. He is to bear in mind, however, 
that the primary and only purpose of the expedi- 
tion is to destroy the Xantippean Field.” 

That ended the orders; but scrawled across the 
foot of the page was an almost illegible addendum: 
“Remember your last board meeting, Rip. And 
good luck!” The penciled initials were C. Renn, 
M. Ps. S. That would be Doc Renn. 

I was so puzzled that my ears began to buzz. 
The government had apparently spent a huge pile 
of money in training us and outfitting the expedi- 
tion. And yet our orders were as hazy as they 
could possibly be. And what was the idea of 
giving separate orders to each crew member? And 
such orders! “The procedure of the pro-tem com- 
mander must be dictated by events.” That’s what 
you’d call putting us on our own! It wasn’t like 
the crisp, detailed commands any navy man is used 
to. It was crazy. 

Well, of course it was crazy, come to think of 
it. What else could you expect with this crew? 

I began to wish sincerely that the board had driven 
me nuts along with the rest of them. 

I was at the chart table, coding up the hundred- 
hour log entry preparatory to slipping it into the 
printer, when I sensed someone behind me. The 
skipper, of course. He stayed there a long time, 
and I knew he was watching me. 

I sat there until I couldn’t stand it any longer. 
“Come on in,” I said without moving. Nothing 
happened. I listened carefully until I could hear 
his careful breathing. It was short, swift. He 
was trying to breathe in a whisper. I began to 
be really edgy. I had a nasty suspicion that if I 
whirled I would be just in time to catch a bolt 
from a by-by gun. 

Clenching my jaw till my teeth hurt, I rose 
slowly, and without looking around, went to the 
power-outpur telltales and looked at them. I didn’t 
know what was the matter with me. I’d never 
been this way before — always expecting attack 
from somewhere. I used to be a pretty nice guy. 
As a matter of fact, I used to be the nicest guy I 
knew. I didn’t feel that way any more. 

Moving to the telltales took me another six or 
eight feet from the man at the door. Safer for 
both of us. And this way I had to turn around 
to get back to the table. I did. It wasn’t the 
skipper. It was the chemist, Harry Voight. We 
were old shipmates, and I knew him well. 

“Hello, Harry. Why the dark-companion act?” 

He was tense. He was wearing a little mus- 
tache of perspiration on his upper lip. His pe- 
culiar eyes — the irises were as black as the pupils 
— were set so far back in his head that I couldn’t 
see them, for the alleyway light was directly over 
his head. His bald, bulging forehead threw two 



deep purple shadows, and out of them he watched 
me. 

“Hi, Rip. Busy?” 

“Not too busy. Put it in a chair.” 

He came in and sat down. He turned as he 
passed me, backed into the pilot’s seat. I perched 
on the chart table. It looked casual, and it kept 
my weight on one foot. If I had to move in any 
direction, including up, I was ready to. 

After a time he said, “What do you think of 
this. Rip?” His gesture took in the ship, Xan- 
tippe, the league, the board. 

“I only work here,” I quoted. That was the 
motto of the navy. Our insignia is the league 
symbol superimposed on a flaming sun, under 
which is an ultraradio screen showing the words, 
“I only work here.” The famous phrase expresses 
the utmost in unquestioning, devoted duty. 

Harry smiled a very sickly smile. If even I saw 
a man with something eating him, it was Harry 
Voight. “S’matter,” I asked quietly. “Did some- 
body do you something?” 

He looked furtively about him, edged closer. 
“Rip, I want to tell you something. Will you 
close the door?” 

I started to refuse, and then reflected that regu- 
lations could stand a little relaxing in a coffin like 
this one. I went and pressed the panel, and it slid 
closed. “Make it snappy,” I said. “If the skipper 
comes up here and finds that door closed he’ll slap 
some wrists around here.” 

As soon as the door closed, Harry visibly 
slumped. “This is the first time in two days I’ve 
felt — comfortable,” he said. He looked at me with 
sudden suspicion. “Rip — ^when we roomed to- 
gether in Venus City, what color was that jacket 
I used to keep my ‘Naval Manual’ in?” 

I frowned. I’d only seen the thing a couple of 
times — “Blue,” I said. 

“That’s right.” He wiped his forehead. “You’re 
O. K.” He made a couple of false starts and then 
said, “Rip, will you keep everything I say strictly 
to yourself? Nobody can be trusted here — no- 
body!” I nodded. “Well,” he went on in a strained 
voice, “I know that this is a screwy trip. I know 
that the crew is — has been made — sort of — well, 
not normal — ” 

He said, with conviction, “The league has its 
own reason for sending us, and I don’t question 
them. But something has gone wrong. You think 
Xantippe is going to get us? Ha! Xantippe is 
getting us now!” He sat back triumphantly. 

“You don’t say!” 

“But I do! Yes, I know she’s countless thou- 
sands of light years away. But I don’t have to 
tell you of the power of Xantippe. For a gigantic 
power like that, a little project like what they’re 
doing to us is nothing. Any force that can throw 
out a field three quarters of a billion miles in 




86 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



diameter can play hell with us at a far greater 
distance." 

‘‘Could be,” I said. “Just what are they doing?” 

“They’re studying us,” he hissed. “They’re 
watching each of us, our every action, our every 
mental reflex. And one by one they are — taking 
us away! They’ve got the Hartley twins, and 
Bort Brecht, and soon they’ll have me. I don’t 
know about the others, but their turns will come. 
They are taking away our personalities, and sub- 
stituting their own. I tell you, those three men — 
and soon now, I with them — those men are not 
humans, but Xantippeans I” 

“Now wait,” I said patiently. “Aren’t you go- 
ing on guesswork? Nobody knows if Xantippe’s 
inhabited. And I doubt that this substitution you 
speak of can be done.” 

“You don’t think so? For pity’s sakes. Rip — 
for your own good, try to believe me! The Xan- 
tippean Field is a thought force, isn’t it? And 
listen — I know it if you don’t — this crew was 
picked for its hatred of Xantippe. Don’t you see 
why? The board expects that hatred to act as a 
mental ‘fender’ — to partly ward off the field. They 
think they might be enough left of our minds 
when we’re inside the field to accomplish our ob- 
jective. They’re wrong, Rip — wrong! The very 
existence of our communal hatred is the thing that 
has given us away. They have been ready for us 
for days now — and they are already doing their 
work aboard.” 

He subsided, and I prodded him with gentle 
questions. 

“How do you know the Xantippeans have taken 
away those three men?” 

“Because I happened to overhear the Hartley 
twins talking in the messroom two days ago. They 
were talking about their orders. I know I should 
not have listened, but I was already suspicious.” 

“They were talking about their orders? I un- 
derstood that the orders were confidential.” 

“They were. But you can’t expect the Hartleys 
to pay much attention to that. They’re closer to- 
gether than two of your teeth. Anyway, Jo con- 
fided that a footnote on his orders had intimated 
that there was only one sane man aboard. Phil 
laughed that off. He said he knew he was sane, 
and he knew that Jo was sane. Now, I reason this 
way. Only a crazy man would question the league ; 
a crazy man or an enemy. Now the Hartleys may 
be unbalanced, but they are still rational. They 
are still navy men. Therefore, they must be 
enemies, because navy men never question the 
league.” 

I listened to that vague logic spoken in that 
intense, convincing voice, and I didn’t know .what 
to think. “What about Bort Brecht — ^and your- 
self?” 

“Bort! Ahh!” His lips curled. “I can sense 
an alien ego when I speak to him. It’s overwhelm- 



ing. I hate Xantippe,” he said wildly, “but I hate 
Bort Brecht more! The only thing I could pos- 
sibly hate more than Xantippe would be an Xan- 
tippean. That proves my point!” He spread his 
hands. “As for me — Rip, I’m going mad. I feel 
it. I see things — and when I do, I will be another 
of them. And then we will all be lost. For there 
is only one sane man aboard this ship, and that is 
me, and when I’m turned into a Xantippean, we 
will be doomed, and I want you to kill me!” He 
was half hysterical. I let him simmer down. 

“And do I look crazy?” I asked. “If you are 
the only sane man — ” 

“Not crazy,” he said quickly. “A schizoid — but 
you’re perfectly rational. You must be, or you 
wouldn’t have remembered what color my book 
jacket was.” 

I got up, reached out a hand to help him to his 
feet. He drew back. “Don’t touch me!” he 
screamed, and when I recoiled, he tried to smile. 
“I’m sorry. Rip, but I can’t be sure about anything. 
You may be an Xantippean by now, and touching 
me might . . . I’ll be going now . . . I — ” He 
went out, his black, burning eyes half closed. 

I stood at the door watching him weave down 
the alleyway. I could guess what was the matter. 
Paranoia — but bad! There was the characteristic 
persecution mania, the intensity of expression, the 
peculiar single-track logic — even delusions of 
grandeur. Heh! He thought he was the one 
mentally balanced man aboard! 

I walked back to the chart table, thinking hard. 
Harry always had been pretty tight-lipped. He 
probably wouldn’t spread any panic aboard. But 
I’d better tip the captain off. I was wondering 
why the Hartley twins and Harry Voight had all 
been told that all hands but me were batty, when 
the skipper walked in. 

“Rip,” he said without preamble. “Did you ever 
have a fight with Hoch McCoy?” 

“Good gosh, no!” I said. “I never saw him in 
my life until the day we sailed. I’ve heard of him, 
of course. Why?” 

Parks looked at me oddly. “He just left my 
quarters. He had the most long-winded and de- 
tailed song and dance about how you were well 
known as an intersolar master saboteur. Gave 
names and dates. The names I know well. But 
the dates — well, I can alibi you for half of ’em. 
I didn’t tell him that. But — Lord ! He almost had 
me convinced!” 

“Another one!” I breathed. And then I told 
him about Harry Voight. 

“I don’t imagine Doc Renn thought they would 
begin to break so soon,” said Parks when I had 
finished. “These boys were under laboratory con- 
ditions for three solid years, you know.” 

“I didn’t know,” I said. “I don’t know a damn 
thing that’s going on around here and I’d better 





MEDUSA 



87 



learn something before I go off my kilter, too.” 
“Why, Ripley,” he said mockingly. “You’re 
overwrought!” Well, I was. Parks said, “I don’t 
know much more than you do, but that goofy story 
of Harry Voight’s has a couple of pretty shrewd 
guesses in it. For instance, I think he was right 
in assuming that the board had done something 
to the minds of . . . ah . . . some of the crew as 
armor against the field. Few men have approached 
it consciously — those who have were usually 
scared half to death. It’s well known that fear 
forms the easiest possible entrance for the thing 
feared — ask any good hypnotist. Hate is some- 
thing different again. Hate is a psychological bloc 
against fear and the thing to be feared. And the 
kind of hate that these guys have for Xantippe 
and the field is something extra special. They’re 
mad, but they’re not afraid — and that’s no acci- 
dent. When we do hit the field, it’s bound to have 
less effect on us than it had on the crews of poor 
devils who tried to attack it.” 

“That sounds reasonable. Er . . . skipper, about 
this ‘one sane man’ business. What do you think 
of that?” 

“More armor,” said Parks. “But armor against 
the man himself. Harry, for instance, was made 
a paranoiac, which is a very sensible kind of nut ; 
but at the same time he was convinced that he 
alone was sane. If he thought his mind had been 
actually tampered with instead of just — tested, 
he’d get all upset about it and, like as not, undo 
half the Psy Board’s work.” 

Some of that struck some frightening chords in 
my memory. “Cap’n — do you believe that there is 
one sane, normal man aboard?” 

“I do. One.” He smiled slowly. “I know what 
you’re thinking. You’d give anything to compare 
your orders with mine, wouldn’t you?” 

“I would. But I won’t do it. Confidential. I 
couldn’t let myself do it even if you agreed, be- 
cause — ” I paused. 

“Well?” 

“Because you’re an officer and I’m a gentleman.” 

In my bunk at last, I gave over wishing that 
we’d get to the field and have it over with, and 
tried to do some constructive thinking. I tried to 
remember exactly what Doc Renn had said, and 
when I did, I was sorry I’d made the effort. “You 
are sane,” and “You have been subjected to psychic 
forces that are sufficient to drive a normal man 
quite mad” might easily be totally different things. 
I’d been cocky enough to assume that they meant 
the same thing. Well, face it. Was I crazy? I 
didn’t feel crazy. Neither did Harry Voight. He 
thought he was going crazy, but he was sure he 
hadn’t got there yet. And what was “crazy,” any- 
way? It was normal, on this ship, to hate Xan- 
tippe so much that you felt sick and sweated cold 
when you thought of it. Parania — persecution. 




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88 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



Did I feel persecuted? Only by the thought of 
our duty toward Xantippe, and the persecution 
was Xantippe, not the duty. Did I have delusions 
of grandeur? Of course not; and yet — hadn’t I 
blandly assumed that Voight had such delusions 
because he thought he was the one sane man 
aboard? 

What was the idea of that, anyway? Why had 
the board put one sane man aboard — if it had? 
Perhaps to be sure that one man reacted differ- 
ently to the others at the field, so that he could 
command. Perhaps merely to make each man feel 
that he was sane, even though he wasn’t. My poor, 
tired brains gave it up and I slept. 

We had two casualties before we reached the 
field. Harry Voight cut his throat in the wash- 
room, and my gentle old buddy, Seabiscuit, 
crushed in the back of Hoch McCoy’s head. “He 
was an Insurrectionist spy,” he insisted mildly, 
time and again, while we were locking him up. 

After that we kept away from each other. I 
don’t think I spoke ten words to anyone outside 
of official business, from that day until we snapped 
into galactic stasis near Betelguese. I was sorry 
about Hoch, because he was a fine lad. But my 
sorrow was tempered by the memory of his visit 
to the captain. There had been a pretty fine 
chance of his doing that to me! 

In normal space once more, we maneuvered our 
agile little craft into an orbit about the huge sun 
and threw out our detectors. These wouldn’t tell 
us much when the time came, for their range 
wasn’t much more than the radius of the field. 

The mad planet swam up onto the plates and I 
stared at it as I buzzed for the skipper. Xantippe 
was a strangely dull planet, even this close to its 
star. She shone dead silver, like a moonlit corpse’s 
flesh. She was wrinkled and patched, and — per- 
haps it was an etheric disturbance — she seemed to 
pulsate slowly from pole to pole. She wasn’t quite 
round ; more nearly an ovoid, with the smaller end 
toward Betelguese! She was between two and 
three times the size of Luna. Gazing at her, I 
thought of the thousands of men of my own 
service who had fallen prey to her, and of the fine 
ships of war that had plunged into the field and 
disappeared. Had they crashed? Had they been 
tucked into some weird warp of space? Were 
they captives of some strange and horrible race? 

Xantippe had defied every type of attack so far. 
She swallowed up atomic mines and torpedoes with 
no appreciable effect. She was apparently im- 
pervious to any rayed vibration known to man; 
but she was matter, and should be easy meat for 
an infragun — if you could get an infragun close 
enough. The gun’s twin streams of highly 
charged particles, positrons on one side, mesatrons 
on the other, would destroy anything that hap- 
pened to be where they converged. But an infra- 



gun has an effective range of less than five hun- 
dred miles. Heretofore, any ship which carried 
the weapon that close to Xantippe carried also a 
dead or mindless crew. 

Captain Parks called the crew into the control 
room as soon as he arrived. No one spoke much; 
they didn’t need any more information after they 
had glanced at the viewplate which formed the 
forward wall of the chamber. Bort Brecht, the 
swarthy engineer, wanted to know how soon we’d 
engage the field. 

“In about two hours,” said the captain glibly. 
I got a two-handed grip on myself to keep from 
yapping. He was a cold-blooded liar — ^we’d hit it 
in half an hour or less, the way I figured it. I 
guessed that he had his own reasons. Perhaps he 
thought it would be easier on the crew that way. 

Parks leaned casually against the integrators 
and faced the crew. “Well, gentlemen,” he said as 
if he were banqueting on Earth, “we’ll soon find 
out what this is all about. I have instructions 
from the league to place certain information at 
your disposal. 

“All hands are cautioned to obey the obvious 
commander once we’re inside the field. That com- 
mander may or may not be myself. That has been 
arranged for. Each man must keep in mind the 
objective — the destruction of the Xantippean 
Field. One of us will lead the others toward the 
objective. Should no one seem to be in command, 
a pro-tem captain is to be elected.” 

Brecht spoke up. “Cap’n, how do we know that 
this ‘commander’ that has been arranged for isn’t 
Harry Voight or Hoch McCoy?” 

“We don’t know,” said Parks gravely. “But we 
will. We will.” 

Twenty-three minutes after Xantippe showed up 
on the plates, we engaged her field. 

All hands were still in the control room when 
we plunged in. I remember the sudden weakness 
of my limbs, and the way all five of the others 
slipped and slid down to the deck. I remember 
the ’Biscuit’s quaver, “I tell you it’s all a dirty 
Insurrectionist plot.” And then I was down on 
the deck, too. 

Something was hurting me, but I knew exactly 
where I was. I was under Dr. Grenfell’s torture 
machine ; it was tearing into my mind, chilling my 
brain. I could feel my brains, every last convolu- 
tion of them. They were getting colder and colder, 
and bigger and bigger, and pretty soon now they 
would burst my skull and the laboratory and the 
building and chill the earth. Inside my chest I 
was hot, and of course I knew why. I was Betel- 
guese, mightiest of suns, and with my own warmth 
I warmed half a galaxy. Soon I would destroy it, 
too, and that would be nice. 

All the darkness in Great Space came to me. 

Leave me alone. I don’t care what you want 





MEDUSA 



89 



done. I just want to lie here and — But nobody 
wanted me to do anything. What’s all the holler- 
ing about, then? Oh. I wanted something done. 
There’s something that has to be done, so get up, 
get up, get— 

“He is dead. Death is but a sleep and a for- 
getting, and he’s asleep, and he’s forgotten every- 
thing, so he must be dead !’’ It was Phil Hartley. 
He was down on his hunkers beside me, shrieking 
at the top of his voice, mouthing and pointing like 
an ape completely caught up in the violence of his 
argument. Which was odd, because he wasn’t 
arguing with anybody. The skipper was sitting 
silently in the pilot’s chair, tears streaming down 
his cheeks. Jo Hartley was dead or passed out on 
the deck. The ’Biscuit and Bort Brecht were sit- 
ting on the deck holding hands like children, star- 
ing entranced into the viewplate. It showed a 
quadrant of Xantippe, filling the screen. The 
planet’s surface did indeed pulsate, and it was a 
beautiful sight. I wanted to watch it drawing 
closer and closer, but there was something that 
had to be done first. 

I sat up achingly. “Get me some water,” I mut- 
tered to Phil Hartley. He looked at me, shrieked, 
and went and hid under the chart table. 

The vision of Xantippe caught and held me 
again, but I shook it off. It was the most desirable 
thing I’d ever seen, and it promised me all I could 
ever want, but there was something I had to do 
first. Maybe someone could tell me. I shook the 
skipper’s shoulder. 

“Go away,” he said. I shook him again. He 
made no response. Fury snapped into my brain. 
I cuffed him with my open hand, front and back, 
front and back. He leaped to his feet, screamed, 
“Leave me alone!” and slumped back into the 
chair. At the sound Bort Brecht lurched to his 
feet and came over to us. When he let go Sea- 
biscuit’s hand, the ’Biscuit began to cry quietly. 

“I’m giving the orders around here,” Bort said. 

I was delighted. There had been something, a 
long time ago, about somebody giving orders. “I 
have to do something,” I said. “Do you know 
what it is?” 

“Come with me.” He led the way, swaggering, 
to the screen. “Look,” he commanded, and then 
sat down beside Seabiscuit and lost himself in 
contemplation. Seabiscuit kept on crying. 

“That’s not it,” I said doubtfully. “I think you 
gave me the wrong orders.” 

“Wrong?” he bellowed. “Wrong? I am never 
wrong!” He got up, and before I knew what was 
coming, he hauled off and cracked three knuckles 
with my jawbone. I hit the deck with a crash 
and slid up against Jo Hartley. Jo didn’t move. 
He was alive, but he just didn’t seem to give a 
damn. I lay there for a long time before I could 
get up again. I wanted to kill Bort Brecht, but 
there was something I had to do first. 



I went back to the captain and butted him out 
of the chair. He snarled at me and went and 
crouched by the bulkhead, tears still streaming 
down his cheeks. I slumped into the seat, my fin- 
gers wandering idly about the controls without 
touching them, my eyes desperately trying to 
avoid the glory of Xantippe. 

It seemed to me that I was very near to the 
thing I was to do. My right hand touched the 
infragun activator switch, came away, went back 
to it, came away. I boldly threw another switch ; 
a network of crosshairs and a bright central circle 
appeared on the screen. This was it, I thought. 
Bort Brecht yelped like a kicked dog when the 
crosshairs appeared, but did not move. I activated 
the gun, and grasped the range lever in one hand 
and the elevation control in the other. A black- 
centered ball of flame hovered near the surface of 
the planet. 

This was it! I laughed exultantly and pushed 
the range lever forward. The ball plunged into 
the dull-silver mystery, leaving a great blank 
crater. I pulled and pushed at the elevation con- 
trol, knowing that my lovely little ball was burn- 
ing and tearing its inexorable way about in the 
planet’s vitals. I drew it out to the surface, lashed 
it up and down and right and left, cut and slashed 
and tore. 

Bort Brecht was crouched like an anthropoid. 




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90 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



knees bent, knuckles on the deck, fury knotting 
his features, eyes fixed on the scene of destruction. 
Behind me Phil Hartley was teetering on tiptoe, 
little cries of pain struggling out of his lips every 
time the fireball appeared. Bort spun and was 
beside me in one great leap, “What’s happening? 
Who’s doing that?” 

“He is,” I said immediately, pointing at Jo Hart- 
ley. I knew that this was going to be tough on 
Jo, but I was doing the thing I had to do, and I 
knew Bort would try to stop me. Bort leaped on 
the prone figure, using teeth and nails and fists 
and feet; and Phil Hartley hesitated only a minute, 
torn between the vision of Xantippe and some- 
thing that called to him from what seemed a long, 
long while ago. Then Jo cried out in agony, and 
Phil, a human prototype of my fireball, struck 
Bort amidships. Back and forth, fore and aft, the 
bloody battle raged, while Seabiscuit whimpered 
and the skipper, still sunk in his introspective 
trance, wept silently. And I cut and stabbed and 
ripped at Xantippe. 

I took care now, and cut a long slash almost 
from pole to pole; and the edges opened away 
from the wound as if the planet had been wrapped 
in a paper sheath. Underneath it was an olive-drab 
color, shot with scarlet. I cut at this incision again 
and again, sinking my fireball in deeper at each 
slash. The weakened ovoid tended to press the 
edges together, but the irresistible ball sheared 
them away as it passed ; and when it had cut nearly 
all the way through, the whole structure fell in on 
itself horribly. I had a sudden feeling of light- 
ness, and then unbearable agony. I remember 
stretching back and back over the chair in the 
throes of some tremendous attack from inside my 
body, and then I struck the deck with my head 
and shoulders, and I was all by myself again in 
the beautiful black. 

There was a succession of lights that hurt, and 
soothing smells, and the sound of arcs and the 
sound of falling water. Some of them were weeks 
apart, some seconds. Sometimes I was conscious 
and could see people tiptoeing about. Once I 
thought I heard music. 

But at last I awoke quietly, very weak, to a hand 
on my shoulder. I looked up. It was Dr. Renn. 
He looked older. 

“How do you feel, Rip?” 

“Hungry,” 

He laughed. “That’s splendid. Know where 
you are?” 

I shook my head, marveling that it didn’t hurt 
me. 

“Earth,” he said. “Psy hospital. You’ve been 
through the mill, son.” 

“What happened?” 



“Plenty. We got the whole story from the 
picrecording tapes inside and outside of your 
ship. You cut Xantippe all to pieces. You in- 
cidentally got Bort Brecht started on the Hartley 
family, which later literally cut him to pieces. 
It cost three lives, but Xantippe is through.” 

“Then — I destroyed the projector, or whatever 
it was — ” 

“You destroyed Xantippe. You — killed Xan- 
tippe. The planet was a ... a thing that I hardly 
dare think about. You ever see a hydromedusa 
here on Earth?” 

“You mean one of those jellyfish that floats on 
the surface of the sea and dangles paralyzing ten- 
tacles down to catch fish?” 

“That’s it. Like a Portuguese man-of-war. 
Well, that was Xantippe, with that strange mind 
field about her for her tentacles. A space dweller ; 
she swept up anything that came her way, killed 
what was killable, digested what was digestible to 
her. Examination of the pictures, incidentally, 
shows that she was all set to hurl out a great 
cloud of spores. One more revolution about Betel- 
guese and she’d have done it.” 

“How come I went under like that?” I was 
beginning to remember. 

“You weren’t as well protected as the others. 
You see, when we trained that crew we carefully 
split the personalities; paranoiac hatred to carry 
them through the field, and an instant reversion 
to manic depressive under the influence of the 
field. But yours was the only personality we 
couldn’t split. So you were the leader — you were 
delegated to do the job. All we could do to you 
was to implant a desire to destroy Xantippe. You 
did the rest. But when the psychic weight of the 
field was lifted from you, your mind collapsed. 
We had a sweet job rebuilding it, too, let me tell 
you!” 

“Why all that business about the ‘one sane 
men r 

Renn grinned. “That was to keep the rest of 
the crew fairly sure of themselves, and to keep 
you from the temptation of taking over before you 
reached the field, knowing that the rest, including 
the captain, were not responsible for their ac- 
tions.” 

“What about the others, after the field disap- 
peared?” 

“They reverted to something like normal. Not 
quite, though. The quartermaster tied up the rest 
of the crew just before they reached Earth and 
handed them over to us as Insurrectionist spies! 

“But as for you, there’s a command waiting for 
you if you want it.” 

“I want it,” I said. He clapped me on the shoul- 
der and left. Then they brought me a man-sized 
dinner. 



THE END. 





91 




eeflss TfiCKS 



Ouch. 

Dear Mr. Campbell: 

How can you dare to print the drivel that is 
the work of Dr. Smith in a top-flight magazine 
such as yours? Not that his writing is so bad — 
personally I think it is surpassed only by Heinlein 
— but his plots — or should I say his plot — can 
surpass only those of the opera, which is rather a 
left-handed compliment, / think. 

Some authors at least vary their formulas a 
trifle. Van Vogt and his monster mania parted 
company, and “Sian” was the result. But Smith 
does not even do that. Time after time, we are 
presented with those liT old intergalactic invad- 
ers, who are finally beaten off, not by brute force, 
superior strategy, or scientific achievement, but 
by that old reliable, ever-present mind force plus, 
of course. X-ray vision. 

And the hero never can die, or be maimed, or, 
in fact, injured in any way, for his trusty stooges 
arrive in the nick of time to replace a loose eyeball 
here and there, fill his tank, check his oil, wipe his 
windshield, and send him off, not only as good as 
ever, but better, with fluid drive and extra springs 
in the back seat. 

Those Arisian supermen, of whom so much is 
thought, could only have been invented by Dr. 
Smith after a heavy midnight supper. Are you 
forced to accept them, or are you hypnotized? 
While re-reading Anson MacDonald’s “Solution 
Unsatisfactory,” I permitted myself a merry little 
chuckle at the Editor’s note appended thereto. 

“ — Dr. E. E. Smith recognized a similar problem 
in the formation of any all-powerful law-enforc- 
ing body such as his Galactic Patrol. Who will 
watch the watchmen? Smith’s solution was com- 
plete and workable — the Arisian supermen.” 

My solution is also complete and workable. 
Who will watch the watchmen? Simple, Dr. Smith 
will. 



Smith, to me, represents the last of a valiant 
but doomed race — the writers of the Buck Rogers- 
Flash Gordon school. The time is fast disappear- 
ing — at least in the better science-fiction maga- 
zines — ^when the author, in a difficult situation, 
can, “ — turn to his micro-ultra-philmeter, he 
rapidly tore out a dozen connections, spot-welded 
twenty-seven busbars, and converted the machine 
into an improved von Krockmeier hyperspace 
lever, which bent space like the blade of a rapier 
and hurtled him in a flash from hilt to point — ” 
My apologies to Theodore Sturgeon for that 
quote. 

There may be a climax in a Smith story, but 
there can be no suspense, unless it be in waiting 
for the hero to come up with a new weapon, or 
physical attribute. 

However, Arisians or no Arisians, Kinnison or 
no Kinnison, the man is a master craftsman, with 
or without “busbars.” He can spew a wonderful 
adjective when he gets warmed up. But, oh, we 
need someone to doctor up those plots! Is there 
one in the house? 

We leave Dr. Smith a bloody, battered hulk, 
lying in the dust of his ignominy, to travel on to 
other topics. 

My typewriter ribbon being what it is, we will 
treat but little with the other scriveners. Suffice 
it to say that my favorites are Heinlein, MacDon- 
ald, de Camp, Van Vogt and Asimov, and let my 
pet hates lie where they fell. 

The cover paintings are as uniformly excellent 
as the interior illustrations are erratic. Jack 
Binder, for instance, whom I have always, affec- 
tionately regarded as the artist without a peer in 
his ability to botch a drawing, came up with the 
best bit of interior work I have ever seen, in any 
magazine — his illustration for “Castaway,” in your 
February, 1941, issue. Schneeman ran him a close 
second, however, with his work on Robert Wil- 



?2 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



ley’s “Fog.”— Sam Salant, 1919 Eighty-first Street, 
Brooklyn, New York. 



Like it now you’ve seen it? 

Dear Mr. Campbell: 

As you may — ^but probably do not — remember, 
I sent you a card a couple of months back, ex- 
tending my thanks and congratulations on the 
new large format of Unknown Worlds. I now 
wish to express a similar sentiment in regard to 
the large-sized ASF< Unger’s Fantasy Fiction 
Field arrived this morning with the good news 
emblazoned on the front page; I nearly dropped 
from the shock. For seven years — i. e., ever since 
I started reading Astounding — I’ve waited for this 
joyous day. At last Astounding will be where it 
belongs — with the quality magazines. 

Of course, the large size has its disadvantages, 
as irate and over-finicky collectors will no doubt 
inform you — but, ah, the beauty and the dignity 
of it! 

In any event, thanks a million, and best of luck 
with the new format. I hope you can get enough 
good material to fill the larger magazine! 

Before I close I want to take this opportunity 
to give you belated thanks for “The Land of 
Unreason” in the October Unknown; it was sim- 
ply magnificent — Paul H. Spencer, 259 Yale Sta- 
tion, New Haven, Connecticut. 



Looks like a straight best-ol-the-year vote for 

“Methuselah’s Children.” 

Dear Mr. Campbell: 

This letter is going to be quite long as I’m going 
to give you a list of the bests in Astounding for 
1941. First, I’ll start off rating the ten best 
stories : 

1. “Methuselah’s Children” — Robert Heinlein. 
My choice as the best science-fiction story of the 
year, not only among the yarns in Astounding but 
in every other stf mag. More power to Bob Hein- 
lein, and let’s have another serial by him. 

2. “The Microcosmic God” — Theodore Stur- 
geon. Boy, oh, boy, what a neat yarn. If Stur- 
geon never writes another word he’s earned his 
place in science-fiction’s hall of fame by this piece 
of work. It even outranks de Camp’s and Mac- 
Donald’s serials. 

3. “The Stolen Dormouse” — L. Sprague de 
Camp. A swell story, although it doesn’t quite 
measure up to the same author’s “Divide and 
Rule.” Why didn’t de Camp enlarge on the plot 
and make the story longer? 

4. “Nightfall” — Isaac Asimov. This was a 
superb piece of work. My only complaint was the 
length. More power to Asimov. 

5. “Sixth Column” — Anson MacDonald. For 
his first serial in Astounding, MacDonald turned 



out a fine invasion story that was far off the beaten 
track. 

6. “Logic of Empire” — Robert Heinlein. What, 
Heinlein again? Don’t lose this writer — he’s one 
of your finest. 

7. “Universe” — Robert Heinlein. This list is 
beginning to read: “The best stories by Robert 
Heinlein.” A slick writer with a slick yarn. 

8. “Jurisdiction” — Nat Schachner. To many, 
this story probably was just another space opera, 
but I enjoyed it immensely. But please don’t let 
Nat run this into the ground like his Past, Present, 
and Future series. 

9. “Solution Unsatisfactory” — Anson MacDon- 
ald. Heinlein and Mac are holding sway over this 
list, and why not with the stories they write. 

10. “Common Sense” — Robert Heinlein. No 
comment is necessary when an author has four 
stories such as Bob has to his credit. 

Now that that pleasant task is finished, I will 
now give my opinion on the covers. 

1. January — Rogers — Ahhhhhhhhh. 

2. September — Rogers. There’s no use giving 
any more compliments to Rogers, he has exhausted 
my adjectives. 

3. March. 4. August. 5. December. 6. Novem- 
ber. 7. April. 8. February. 9. June. 10. Octo- 
ber. 11. May. 12. July. 

This summary wouldn’t be complete without a 
list of favorite authors and artists, so I’ll take 
the authors first: 

1. E. E. Smith, the only reason “Second Stage 
Lensmen” isn’t first in the hit parade is because 
you said to list it with the stories of 1942. 2. Robert 
Heinlein. 3. Jack Williamson. 4. L. Sprague de 
Camp. 5. Ross Rocklynne. 6. Nelson S. Bond. 

7. Nat Schachner. 8. Theodore Sturgeon. 9. Isaac 
Asimov. 10. Anson MacDonald, et cetera, et 
cetera. 

And now the artists; 

1. Virgil Finlay, please get some work from this 
man, he’s tops. 2. Hubert Rogers, never let him 
off those covers. 3. Elliot Dold, why isn’t he in 
Astounding? 4. Edd Cartier. 5. Frank R. Paul, 
some art work by him wouldn’t hurt. 6. Charles 
Schneeman. 7. H. W. Wesso, please get him back. 

8. Frank Kramer. 9. H. W. McCauley. 

Astounding has grown rapidly this past year, 

both in quality and quantity. But still there are a 
few faults apparent; I hope the change in size 
will render these null and void. The greatest 
error lies in the artistry, the artists that you use 
are not entirely to my liking, neither are the con- 
stant uses of small cuts and lesser full-page 
spreads meeting with approval. The readers’ col- 
umn has diminished to scanty length and fewer 
letters. But Astounding is still the unquestioned 
leader of science-fiction and, I hope, will remain 
that for years to come. — Vincent Scullin, care of 
John Shields, 2914-29th Street, Washington, D. C, 




SECOND STAGE LENSMEN 

By E. E. Smith, Ph. D. 

# CONCLUDING "Skylark" Smith's latest novel of the 
Patrol. Kinnison shows that one man, in the right place, 
can wreck a fighting force more thoroughly than a fleet. 

And the right place — ^is absolute ruler of the enemy! 



Illustrated by Hubert Rogers 



Synopsis 

Wbea the inertialess drive was 
perfected and commerce throughout 
the Galaxy became commonplace, 
crime became so rampant as to 
threaten Civilization. Then came 
into being the Galactic Patrol, an or~ 
ganization whose highest members, 
the Lensmen, are of unlimited au- 
thority and range. Each is identified 
by his Lens, a pseudoliving, tele- 



pathic jewel matched to the ego of 
its owner by the Arisians, a race of 
beings of unthinkable age and of im- 
mense power of mind. The Lens 
cannot be counterfeited, since it 
glows with color when its owner 
wears it and kills any other who at- 
tempts to do so. 

Of all the eighteen-year-olds of 
Earth, only about a hundred win 
through the five-year period of elimi- 
nation and become Lensmen. Kim- 



ball Kinnison graduates Number One 
in his class and sets out to capture 
one of the new-type ships of the 
"pirates"— in reality Boskonians, ad- 
herents to a culture even more 
widely spread than Civilization. He 
succeeds, but with Van Buskirk, a 
Valerian, is compelled to take to a 
lifeboat. 

They land upon Velantia and aid 
Worsel, a scientist, in overcoming 
the Overlords, a horribly parasitic 







94 

race of Delgon, a neighboring planet. 
En route to Earth they land upon 
Trenco, the planet upon which is 
produced thionite, the deadliest of 
all habit-forming drugs. 

Kinnison seeks Grand Base, Bos- 
kone’s military galactic headquar- 
ters. He is seriously wounded, and 
in Base Hospital is cared for by 
Nurse Clarrissa MacDougall. Sur- 
geon General Lacy and Port Admiral 
Haynes promote a romance between 
nurse and Lensman. Kinnison goes 
to Arisia for advanced mental train- 
ing, acquiring the sense oi percep- 
tion and the ability to control the 
minds of others. He investigates 
Grand Base, finding it impregnable 
to direct attack. He obtains a vast 
supply of thionite from Trenco. He 
breaks into Grand Base and Hoods 
its air with thionite, wiping out all 
the personnel except Helmuth, the 
Boskonian commander. The Patrol 
attacks and Grand Base falls. 

He discovers that Boskone's su- 
preme command is in the Second 
Galaxy, and decides that the best 
way to get a line upon it is to work 
upward through the drug syndicate. 
Disguised as a dock walloper, he fre- 
quents the saloon of Bominger, the 
fat drug baron of the planet Radelix, 
and helps raid it. He calls a Con- 
ference of Scientists, which devises 
the means of building a bomb of 
negative matter. Strongheart, the 
next in line above Bominger, he in- 
vestigates as Wild Bill Williams, of 
Aldebaran II, meteor miner; after 
having become a heavy drinker and 
a bentlam eater. From Strongheart’s 
mind he learns that his next objec- 
tive is Crowninshield of Tressilia 
III, the operator of a very high- 
class pleasure palace. 

Boskone forms an alliance with 
the Overlords of Delgon, and 
through a hyperspatial tube they at- 
tack the commerce of humanity. 
But Kinnison and the Dauntless, 
the Patrol’s finest spaceship, go 
down the tube and blast out the in- 
stallation. 

In order to investigate Crownin- 
shield logically. Wild Bill Williams 
strikes it rich in the meteor belts 
and becomes William Williams, Al- 
debaranian gentleman — he having ac- 
tually been a gentleman once. From 
Crowninshield he gets a line upon 
Jake, one of the Galactic Directors, 
whose stronghold is in a star cluster 
just outside the First Galaxy. He 
goes there and learns that Jalte does 
take orders from Boskone; which is 
not a single entity, but a Council of 
Nine of the Eich, a monstrous race 
inhabiting Jarnevon. 

He and Worsel go there on a 
scouting expedition. Kinnison gets 
into the stronghold, but is blinded 



ASTQUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 

and tortured. Worsel helps him es- 
cape and they get back to Prime 
Base. Kinnison’s hands and feet 
have to be amputated; but Phillips, 
a Posenian surgeon who has finally 
Hnished his researches in neurology 
and hormones, causes new limbs and 
eyes to grow in place of the lost 
members. 

Grand Fleet invades the Second 
Galaxy. Jalte’s planet is consumed 
by a bomb of negative matter, the 
enemy Heet is wiped out, and Jar- 
nevon is crushed between two col- 
liding inert planets. 

Kinnison learns that a counter- 
attack is to be made against Tellus. 
The invading Heet is destroyed 
largely by the use of the "sunbeam”, 
a concentration of all. the energy of 
the Sun into one beam. He goes 
to Lyrane II, peopled by matriarchs 
who hate all men and all other beings 
except themselves. There he cap- 
tures Illona Potter, a Boskonian 
agent. She is not a hardened spy, 
but a lovable youngster. 

Her planet, Lonabar, is unknown 
to Civilization. Men jo Bleeko is 
its dictator. She is wearing "beads" 
which are in reality priceless gems 
—Lonabar’s real jewels, which she 
describes, are unknown to man. Only 
one Lensman, Nadreck of Palain VII, 
a frigid-blooded poison-breather, has 
ever seen any of those gems. He 
Hnds Lonabar and maps it. 

Both Lyrane II and Lonabar must 
be investigated, and no known Lens- 
man can work against the opposition 
of the matriarchs. Hence Clarrissa 
is made a Lensman and assigned to 
the task. Kinnison works Lonabar 
as Cartiff, an outlaw jeweler. He 
overcomes Menjo Bleeko. Before 
killing him he discovers that Bleeko’s 
mind has been so operated upon that 
he does not remember sending an 
expedition to Lyrane. It. must be 
important — and Mac is there alone! 
Worsel, Tregonsee, and Nadreck 
join Kinnison upon Lyrane II, and 
from Clarrissa’s data they deduce 
that a cavern of Overlords is located 
upon the planet. 

The Patrolmen locate the cavern, 
capture the Overlords, and read their 
minds; learning that the Eich have 
established a very heavily fortiBed 
base upon Lyrane VIII. Instead of 
attacking this base, Nadreck pene- 
trates its defenses by stealth, Bnding 
out that they take orders from an 
Eichlike monster named Kandron, of 
the planet Onlo in the Second 
Galaxy. He learns also of Kandron’s 
master, the human Alcon, Tyrant of 
Thrale. Kinnison and Nadreck trace 
the line of intergalactic communica- 
tion, while Grand Fleet, to cover the 
operation, invades the Second Galaxy 
in force. 



Grand Fleet meets and destroys 
the Boskonian Heet, then begins to 
colonize and to fortify the planet 
Klovia, for use as a base. Nadreck 
goes to Onlo, to work against Kan- 
dron; Kinnison to Thrale. By alter- 
ing records and living minds to £t, 
Kinnison takes the name and posi- 
tion of Traska Gannel, an officer of 
Alcon' s Royal Guards. He works his 
way up, becoming a major. He is 
about to be chosen one of Alcon’s 
personal advisers when Nadreck tells 
him that Kandron is about to leave 
Onlo via hyperspatial tube. Kinni- 
son calls the dauntless and follows 
Kandron. Before arriving at destina- 
tion the ship is thrown out of the 
tube into unfamiliar space. 

PART IV 
XVIII. 

Here, upon the background 
of a blackness so intense as to be 
obviously barren of nebular ma- 
terial, there lay a multitude of 
blazingly resplendent stars — and 
nothing except stars. A few hun- 
dred were of a visual magnitude 
of about minus three. Approxi- 
mately the same number were 
of minus two or thereabouts, and 
so on down; but there did not 
seem to be a star or other celes- 
tial object in that starkly in- 
credible sky of an apparent 
magnitude greater than about 
plus four. 

“What do you make of this. 
Sir Austin?” Kinnison asked, 
quietly. “It’s got me stopped 
like a traffic light.” 

The mathematician ran toward 
him and the Lensman stared. He 
had never known Cardynge to 
hurry — in fact, he was not really 
running now. He was walking, 
even though his legs were fairly 
twinkling in their rapidity of 
motion. As he approached Kin- 
nison his mad pace gradually 
slowed to normal. 

“Oh — time must be cockeyed 
here, too,” the Lensman ob- 
served. “Look over there — see 
how fast those fellows are mov- 
ing, and how slow those others 
over that way are?” 

“Ah, yes. Interesting — in- 
tensely interesting. Truly, a 
most remarkable and intriguing 




SECOND STAGE LENSMEN 



95 



phenomenon,” the fascinated 
mathematician enthused. 

“But that wasn’t what I meant. 
Swing this plate — it’s on visual 
— around outside, so as to get the 
star aspect and distribution. 
What do you think of it?” 

“Peculiar — I might almost say 
unique,” the scientist concluded, 
after his survey. “Not at all like 
any normal configuration or ar- 
rangement with which I am 
familiar. We could perhaps 
speculate, but would it not be 
preferable to secure data first? 
Say by approaching a solar sys- 
tem and conducting systematic 
investigations?” 

“Uh-huh” — and again Kinnison 
stared at the wispy little physi- 
cist in surprise. Here was a 
man! “You’re certainly some- 
thing to tie to, ace, do you know 
it?” he asked, admiringly. Then, 
as Cardynge gazed at him ques- 
tioningly, incomprehendingly ; 

“Skip it. Can you hear me, 
Henderson?” 

“Yes — just barely.” 

“Shoot us across to one of 
those nearer stars, stop, and go 
inert.” 

“QX, chief.” The pilot obeyed. 

And in the instant of inerting, 
the visiplate into which the two 
men stared went blank. The 
thousands of stars studding the 
sky a moment before had disap- 
peared as though they had never 
been. 

“Why. . . . What. . . . How in 
all the yellow hells of space can 
that happen?” Kinnison blurted. 

Without a word, Cardynge 
reached out and snapped the 
plates receiver over from “vis- 
ual” to “ultra,” whereupon the 
stars reappeared as suddenly as 
they had vanished. 

“Something’s screwy some- 
where!” the Lensman protested. 
“We can’t have an inert velocity 
greater than that of light — it’s 
impossible!” 

“Few things, if any, can be 
said definitely to be impossible; 
and everything is relative, not 
absolute,” the old scientist de- 
clared, pompously. “This space, 
for instance. You have not yet 



perceived, I see, even that you 
are not in the same three-dimen- 
sional space in which we have 
heretofore existed.” 

Kinnison gulped. He was go- 
ing to protest about that, too, but 
in the face of Cardynge’s unper- 
turbed acceptance of the fact he 
did not quite dare to say what 
he had in mind. 

“That is better,” the old man 
declaimed. “Do not get excited 
— to do so dulls the mind. Take 
nothing for granted, do not 
jump at conclusions — to commit 
either of those errors will oper- 
ate powerfully against success. 
Working hypotheses, young 
man, must be based upon accur- 
ately determined facts; not upon 
mere guesses, superstitions, or 
the figments of personal preju- 
dices.” 

“Bub-bub-but . . . QX — skip 
it!” Nine tenths of the Daunt- 
less’ crew would have gone out 
of control at the impact of the 
knowledge of what had hap- 
pened; even Kinnison’s power- 
ful mind was shaken. Cardynge, 
however, was — not seemed to be, 
but actually was — as calm and as 
self-contained as though he were 
in his own quiet study. “Ex- 
plain it to me, will you please, in 
words of as nearly one syllable 
as possible?” 

“Our looser thinkers have for 
centuries speculated upon the 
possibility of an entire series of 
different spaces existing simul- 
taneously, side by side in a hy- 
pothetical hypercontinuum. I 
have never indulged in such 
time-wasting ; but now that 
actual corroborative data have 
become available, I regard it as 
a highly fruitful field of investi- 
gation. Two extremely signifi- 
cant facts have already become 
apparent; the variability of time 
and the non-applicability of our 
so-called ‘laws’ of motion. Dif- 
ferent spaces, different laws, it 
would seem.” 

“But when we cut our genera- 
tors in that other tube we 
emerged into our own space,” 
Kinnison argued. “How do you 
account for that?” 



“I do not as yet try to account 
for it!” Cardynge snapped. 
“Two very evident possibilities 
should already be apparent, even 
to your feeble brain. One, that 
at the moment of release your 
vessel happened to be situated 
within a fold of our own space. 
Two, that the collapse of the 
ship’s force fields always returns 
it to its original space, while the 
collapse of those of the shore 
station always forces it into 
some other space. In the latter 
case, it would be reasonable to 
suppose that the persons or be- 
ings at the other end of the tube 
may have suspected that we were 
following Kandron, and, as soon 
as he landed, cut off their forces 
deliberately to throw us out of 
space. They may even have 
learned that persons of lesser 
ability, so treated, never return. 
Do not allow yourself to be at all 
impressed by any of these pos- 
sibilities, however, as the truth 
may very well lie in something 
altogether different. Bear it in 
mind that we have as yet very 
little data upon which to for- 
mulate any theories, and that 
the truth can be revealed only 
by a very careful, accurate, and 
thorough investigation. Please 
note also that I would surely 
have discovered and evaluated 
all these unknowns during the 
course of my as yet incomplete 
study of our own hyperspatial 
tubes; that I am merely continu- 
ing here a research in which I 
have already made noteworthy 
progress.” 

Kinnison really gasped at that 
— the guy was certainly terrific! 
He called the chief pilot. “Go 
free. Hen, and start flitting for 
a planet — ^we’ve got to sit down 
somewhere before we can start 
back home. When you find one, 
land free. Stay free, and watch 
your Bergs — I don’t have to tell 
you what will happen if they 
quit on us.” 

Then Thorndyke. “Verne? 
Break out some personal neu- 
tralizers. We’ve got a job of 
building to do — inertialess” — 
and he explained to both men in 



96 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 




"I will not have my mind invaded" Kim snapped. "That is 
a violation of my personal privacy I will not yield!" 



flashing thoughts what had hap- ,for the tube and for us to return son breathed to himself, as, he- 
pened and what they had to do. in the lifeboats,” Cardynge roically, he “skipped it.” 

“You grasp the basic idea. Kin- pointed out. 

nison,” Cardynge approved, “What? Abandon this ship? Somewhat to Kinnison’s sur- 
“that it is necessary to construct Waste all that time rebuilding prise — he had more than half ex- 

a station apart from the vessel all the boats?” pected that planets would be 

in which we propose to return “It is preferable, of course, nonexistent in that space — the 

to our normal environment. You and more expeditious, to find a pilots did find a solid world 

err grievously, however, in your planet, if possible,” the scientist upon which to land. It was a 

insistence upon the necessity of conceded. “However, it is plain peculiar planet indeed. It did 

discovering a planet, satellite, that it is in no sense necessary, not move right, it did not look 

asteroid, or other similar celes- Your reasoning is fallacious, right, it did not feel right. It 

tial body upon which to build your phraseology is deplorable, was waterless, airless, desolate; 
it.” I am correcting you in the ad- a senseless jumble of jagged 

“Huh?” Kinnison demanded. mittedly faint hope of teaching fragments, mostly metallic. It 
“It is eminently possible — yes, you scientific accuracy of was neither hot nor cold — in- 
even practicable — for us to use thought and of statement.” deed, it seemed to have no tem- 

the Dauntless as an anchorage “Wow! Wottaman!” Kinni- perature of its own at all. There 







SECOND STAGE LENSMEN 



97 



was nothing whatever right 
about it, Kinnison declared. 

“Oh, yes, there is!” Thorndyke 
contradicted. “Time is constant 
here, whatever its absolute rate 
may be, these metals are nice to 
work with, and some of this 
other stuff will make insulation. 
Or hadn’t you thought of that? 
Which would be faster, cutting 
down an intrinsic velocity of fif- 
teen lights to zero or building 
the projector out of native ma- 
terials? And if you match in- 
trinsics, what will happen when 
you hit our normal space again?” 

“Plenty, probably . . . uh-huh, 
faster to use the stuff that be- 
longs here. Careful, though, 
fella!” 

And care was indeed neces- 
sary; extreme care that not a 
particle of matter from the ship 
was used in the construction and 
that not a particle of the plan- 
et’s substance by any mischance 
got aboard the spaceship. 

The actual work was simple 
enough. Cardynge knew exactly 
what had to be done. Thorn- 
dyke knew exactly how to do it, 
as he had built precisely similar 
generators for the experimental 
tubes upon Tellus. He had a 
staff of experts; the Dauntless 
carried a machine shop and 
equipment second to none. Raw 
material was abundant, and it 
was an easy matter to block out 
an inertialess room within which 
the projectors and motors were 
built. And, after they were 
built, they worked. 

It was not the work, then, but 
the strain which wore Kinnison 
down. The constant, wearing 
strain of incessant vigilance to 
be sure that the Bergenholms 
and the small units of the per- 
sonal neutralizers did not falter 
for a single instant. He did not 
lose a man, but again and again 
there flashed into his mind the 
ghastly picture of one of his 
boys colliding with the solid 
metal of the planet at a relative 
velocity fifteen times that of 
light! The strain of the endless 
checking and rechecking to 
make certain that there was no 



exchange of material, however 
slight, between the ship and the 
planet. 

Above all, the strain of know- 
ing a thing which, apparently, 
no one else suspected: that Car- 
dynge, with all his mathemati- 
cal knowledge, was not going to 
be able to find his way back! He 
had never spoken of this to the 
scientist. He did not have to. 
He knew that without a knowl- 
edge of the fundamental distin- 
guishing characteristics of our 
normal space — a knowledge even 
less to be expected than that a 
fish should know the fundamen- 
tal equations and structure of 
water — they never could, save by 
sheerest accident, return to their 
own space. And as Cardynge 
grew more and more tensely, un- 
socially immersed in his utterly 
insoluble problem, the more and 
more uneasy the Gray Lensman 
became. But this last difficulty 
was resolved first, and in a to- 
tally unexpected fashion. 

“Ah, Kinnison of Tellus, here 
you are — I have been consider- 
ing your case for some twenty- 
nine of your seconds,” a deep, 
well-remembered voice re- 
sounded within his brain. 

“Mentor!” he exclaimed, and 
at the sheer shock of his relief 
he came very near indeed to 
fainting. “Thank Klono and 
Noshabkeming you found us! 
How did you do it? How do we 
get ourselves out of here?” 

“Finding you was elementary,” 
the Arisian replied, calmly, 
“Since you were not in your own 
environment you must be else- 
where. If my mind had been 
really competent, I would have 
foreseen this event in detail. 
Even though I did not so foresee 
it, however, it required but lit- 
tle thought to perceive that it 
was a logical, in fact, an inevi- 
table, development. Such being 
the case, it needed very little 
additional effort to determine 
what had happened, and how, 
and why; likewise precisely 
where you must now be. As for 
departure therefrom, your me- 



chanical preparations are both 
correct and adequate. I could 
give you the necessary knowl- 
edge, but it is rather technically 
specialized and not negligible in 
amount; and since your brain is 
of very limited capacity, it is 
better not to fill any part of it 
with mathematics for which you 
will have no subsequent use. Put 
yourself en rapport, therefore, 
with Sir Austin Cardynge. I 
will follow.” 

He did so, and as mind met 
mind there ensued a conversa- 
tion whose barest essentials Kin- 
nison could not even dimly 
grasp. For Cardynge, as has 
been said, could think in the uni- 
versal language of mathematics; 
in the esoteric symbology which 
very few minds have ever been 
able even partially to master. 
The Lensman did not get it, nor 
any part of it ; he knew only that 
in that to him completely mean- 
ingless gibberish the Arisian was 
describing to the physicist, ex- 
actly and fully, the distinguish- 
ing characteristics of a vast 
number of parallel and simul- 
taneously coexistent spaces. 

If that was “rather” technical 
stuff, the awed Lensman won- 
dered, what would really deep 
stuff be like? Not that he 
wanted to find out! No wonder 
these mathematical wizards were 
nuts — went off the beam — ^he’d 
be pure squirrel food if he had 
l!alf that stuff in his skull ! 

But Sir Austin took to it like 
a cat lapping up cream or doing 
away with the canary. He 
brightened visibly; he swelled; 
and, when the Arisian had with- 
drawn from his mind, he preened 
himself and swaggered as he 
made meticulous adjustments of 
the delicate meters and controls 
which the technicians had al- 
ready built. 

Preparations complete, Car- 
dynge threw in the switches and 
everything belonging to the 
Dauntless was rushed aboard. 
The neutralizers, worn so long 
and cherished so assiduously, 
were taken off with profound 
sighs of relief. The vessel was 



1-3 



astounding science-fiction 



briefly, tentatively inerted. QX 
— no faster-than-light meteorites 
tore volatilizingly through her 
mass. So far, so good. 

Then the ship’s generators 
were energized and smoothly, ef- 
fortlessly the big battle wagon 
took the interdimensional 
plunge. There came the ex- 
pected, but nevertheless almost 
unendurable acceleration ; the 
imperceptible, unloggable flight 
through the drably featureless 
grayness; the horrible decelera- 
tion. Stars flashed beautifully 
upon the plates. , . 

“We made it!” Kinnison 
shouted in relief when he had 
assured himself that they had 
emerged into “real” space inside 
the Second Galaxy, only a few 
parsecs away from their point of 
departure. “By Klono’s golden 
grin. Sir Austin, you figured it 
to a red whisker ! And when the 
Society meets, Tuesday week, 
won’t you just blast that ape 
Weingarde to a cinder? Hot 
dog!” 

“Having the basic data, the 
solution and the application fol- 
lowed of necessity — automati- 
cally — uniquely,” the scientist 
said, austerely. He was highly 
pleased with himself, he was tre- 
mendously flattered by the Lens- 
man’s ebullient praise; but not 
for anything conceivable would 
he have so admitted. 

“Well, the first thing we had 
better do is to find out what time 
of what day it is,” Kinnison 
went on, as he directed a beam 
to the Patrol headquarters upon 
Klovia. 

“Better ask ’em the year, too,” 
Henderson put in, pessimisti- 
cally — he had missed Illona 
poignantly — but it was not that 
bad. 

In fact, it was not bad at all; 
they had been gone only a little 
over a week of Thralian time. 
This finding pleased Kinnison 
immensely, as he had been more 
than half afraid that it had been 
a month. He could explain a 
week easily enough, but any- 
thing over two weeks would have 
been tough to handle. 



The supplies of the Thralian 
speedster were adjusted to fit the 
actual elapsed time,, and Worsel 
and Kinnison engraved upon the 
minds of the five unconscious 
Guardsmen completely detailed 
— even though equally com- 
pletely fictitious — memories of 
what they and Major Gannel had 
done since leaving Thrale. Their 
memories were not exactly alike, 
of course — each man had had dif- 
ferent duties and experiences, 
and no two observers see pre- 
cisely the same things even 
while watching the same event — 
but they were very convincing. 
Also, and fortunately, not even 
the slightest scars were left by 
the operations, for in these cases 
no memory chain had to be 
broken at any point. 

The Dauntless blasted off for 
Klovia; the speedster started for 
Thrale. Kinnison’s crew woke 
up — without having any inkling 
that they had ever been uncon- 
scious or that their knowledge of 
recent events did not jibe ex- 
actly with the actual occurrences 
— and resumed work. 

Immediately upon landing, 
Kinnison turned in a full official 
report of the mission, giving 
himself neither too much nor too 
little credit for what had been 
accomplished. They had found 
a Patrol sneak-boat near Line 11. 
They had chased it so many par- 
secs, upon such-and-such a 
course, before forcing it to en- 
gage. They had crippled it and 
boarded, bringing away material, 
described as follows, which had 
been turned over to Space In- 
telligence. And so on. It would 
hold, Kinnison knew; and it 
would be corroborated fully by 
the ultraprivate reports which 
his men would make to their real 
bosses. 

The colonel made good; hence 
with due pomp and ceremony 
Major Traska Gannel was in- 
ducted into the Household. He 
was given one of the spy-ray- 
screened cigarette boxes in 
which Alcon’s most trusted offi- 
cers were allowed to carry their 



private, secret insignia. Kinni- 
son was glad to get that — he 
could carry his Lens with him 
now, if the thing was really ray 
proof, instead of leaving it bur- 
ied in a can outside the city 
limits. 

The Lensman went to his first 
meeting of the Advisory Cabinet 
with his mind set on a hair trig- 
ger. He hadn’t been around Al- 
con very much, but he knew that 
the Tyrant had a stronger mind 
shield than any untreated human 
being had any right to have. 
He’d have to play this mighty 
close to his chest — he didn’t 
want any zwilnik reading his 
mind, yet he didn’t want to cre- 
ate suspicion by revealing the 
fact that he, too, had an impene- 
trable block. 

As he approached the cabinet 
chamber he walked into a zone 
of hypnosis, and practically 
bounced. He threw up his head : 
it was all he could do to keep his 
barriers down. It was general, 
he knew, not aimed specifically 
at him — to fight the hypnotist 
would be to call attention to 
himself as the only man able 
either to detect his work or to 
resist him ; would give the whole 
show away. Therefore he let 
the thing take hold — ^with reser- 
vations — of his mind. He stud- 
ied it. He analyzed it. Sight 
only, eh? QX — he’d let Alcon 
have superficial control, and he 
wouldn’t put too much faith in 
anything he saw. 

He entered the room; and, 
during the preliminaries, he 
reached out delicately, to touch 
imperceptibly mind after mind. 
All the ordinary officers were on 
the level ; now he’d see about the 
prime minister. He’d heard a 
lot about this Fossten, but had 
never met him before — he’d see 
what the guy really had on the 
ball. 

He did not find out, however. 
He did not even touch his mind, 
for that worthy also had an auto- 
matic block; a block as effective 
as Alcon’s or as Kinnison’s own. 

Sight was unreliable; how 
about the sense of perception? 



SECOND STAGE LENSMEN 



99 



He tried it, very daintily and 
gingerly, upon Alcon’s feet, legs, 
arms, and torso. Alcon was real, 
and present in the flesh. Then 
the premier — and he yanked his 
sense back, canceled it, appalled. 
Perception was blocked, at ex- 
actly what his eyes told him was 
the fellow’s skin! 

• That tore it — that busted it 
wide open. What in all the nine 
iridescent hells did that mean? 
He didn’t know of anything ex- 
cept a thought-screen that could 
stop a sense of perception. 
He thought intensely. Alcon’s 
■ mind was bad enough. It had 
been treated, certainly; mind 
shields like that didn’t grow nat- 
urally on human or near-human 
beings. Maybe the Eich, or the 
race of super-Eich to which Kan- 
dron belonged, could give men- 
tal treatments of that kind. 
Fossten, though, was worse. 

Alcon’s boss! Probably not a 
man at all. It was he, it was 
clear, and not Alcon, who was 
putting out the zone of compul- 
sion. An Eich, maybe? No, he 
was a warm-blooded oxygen 
breather; a frigid-blooded super- 
big-shot would make Alcon come 
to him. A monster, almost cer- 
tainly, though ; possibly of a 
type Kinnison had never seen 
before. Working by remote con- 
trol? Possibly: but probably he 
was smaller than a man and was 
actually inside the dummy that 
everybody thought was the 
prime minister — that was it, for 
all the tea in China — 

“And what do you think. Ma- 
jor Gannel?’’ the prime minister 
asked, smoothly, insinuating his 
mind into Kinnison’s as he 
spoke. 

Kinnison, who knew that they 
had been discussing an invasion 
of the First Galaxy, hesitated 
as though in thought. He was 
thinking, too, and ultra-care- 
fully. If that ape was out to do 
a job of digging he’d never dig 
again — QX, he was just checking 
Gannel’s real thoughts against 
what he was going to say. 

“Since I am such a newcomer 

AST— 7B 



to this Council I do not feel as 
though my opinions should be 
given too much weight,” Kinni- 
son said — and thought — slowly, 
with the exactly correct amount 
of obsequiousness. “However, I 
have a very decided opinion 
upon the matter, I believe very 
firmly that it would be better 
tactics to consolidate our posi- 
tion here in our own galaxy 
first.” 

“You advise, then, against any 
immediate action against Tel- 
lus?” the prime minister asked. 
“Why?” 

“I do, definitely. It seems to 
me that shortsighted, half-pre- 
pared measures, based upon care- 
less haste, were the underlying 
causes of our recent reverses. 
Time is not an important factor 
— the Great Plan was worked 
out, not in terms of days or of 
years, but of centuries and mil- 
lennia — and it seems self-evident 
that we should make ourselves 
impregnably secure, then expand 
slowly; seeing to it that we can 
hold, against everything that the 
Patrol can bring to bear, every 
planet that we take.” 

“Do you realize that you are 
criticizing the chiefs of staff 
who are in copplete charge of 
military operations?” Alcon 
asked, venomously, 

“Fully,” the Lensman replied 
coldly. “I ventured this opinion 
because I was asked specifically 
for it. The chiefs of staff failed, 
did they not? If they had suc- 
ceeded, criticism would have 
been neither appropriate nor 
forthcoming. As it is, I do not 
believe that mere criticism of 
their conduct, abilities, and tac- 
tics is sufficient. They should 
be disciplined and demoted. 
New chiefs should be chosen; 
persons abler and more efficient 
than the present incumbents.” 

This was a bomb shell. Dis- 
sentions waxed rife and raucous, 
but amidst the turmoil the Lens- 
man received from the prime 
minister a flash of coldly con- 
gratulatory approval. 

And as Major Traska Gannel 
made his way back to his quar- 








100 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



ters two things were starkly 
plain : 

First, he would have to cut 
Alcon down and himself become 
the Tyrant of Thrale. It was 
unthinkable to attack or to de- 
stroy this planet. It had too 
many too promising leads — there 
were too many things that didn’t 
make sense — above all, there 
were the stupendous files of in- 
formation which no one mind 
could scan in a lifetime. 

Second, if he wanted to keep 
on living he would have to keep 
his detector shoved out to maxi- 
mum — this prime minister was 
just about as touchy and just 
about as safe to play with as a 
hundred kilograms of dry nitro- 
gen iodide! 

XIX. 

Nadreck, the Palainian Lens- 
man, had not exaggerated in say- 
ing that he could not leave his 
job, that his work would come 
undone if he did. 

As has been intimated, Na- 
dreck was cowardly and lazy and 
characterized otherwise by traits 
not usually regarded by human- 
kind as being noble. He was, 
however, efficient; and he was 
now engaged in one of the most 
colossal tasks ever attempted by 
any one Lensman. Characteris- 
tically, he had told no one, not 
even Haynes or Kinnison, what 
it was that he was trying to do — 
he never talked about a job until 
after it was done, and his talking 
then was usually limited to a 
taped, Lensman’s-sealed, tersely 
factual report. He was “investi- 
gating” Onlo; that was all that 
anybody knew. 

Onlo was at that time perhaps 
the most heavily fortified planet 
in the Universe. Compared to 
its massed might Jarnevon was 
weak; Tellus, except for its sun- 
beams and its other open-space 
safeguards, a joke. Onlo’s de- 
fenses were all, or nearly all, 
planetary ; Kandron’s strategy, 
unlike Haynes’, was to let any 
attackirig force get almost down 
to the ground and then blast it 
out of existence. 



Thus Onlo was in effect one 
tremendously armed, titanically 
powered fortress; not one cubic 
foot of its poisonous atmosphere 
was out of range of projectors 
theoretically capable of punctur- 
ing any defensive screen pos- 
sible of mounting upon a mobile 
base. 

And Nadreck, the cowardly, 
the self-effacing, the apologetic, 
had tackled Onlo — alone! 

Using the technique which has 
already been described in con- 
nection with his highly success- 
ful raid upon the Eich strong- 
hold of Lyrane VIII, he made 
his way through the Onlonian 
defensive screens and settled 
down comfortably near one of 
the gigantic domes. Then, as 
though time were of no conse- 
qu^ce whatever, he proceeded 
to get acquainted with the per- 
sonnel. He learned the identi- 
fying symbol of each entity and 
analyzed every one psychologi- 
cally, mentally, intellectually, 
and emotionally. He tabulated 
his results upon the Palainian 
equivalent of index cards, then 
very carefully arranged the 
cards into groups. 

In the same fashion he visited 
and took the census of dome 
after dome. No one knew that 
he had been near, apparently he 
had done nothing; but in each 
dome as he left it there had been 
sown seeds of discord and of 
strife which, at a carefully cal- 
culated future time, would yield 
bitter fruit indeed. 

For every mind has some 
weakness* each intellect some 
trait of which it does not care to 
boast, each Achilles his heel. 
That is true even of Gray Lens- 
men — and the Onlonians, with 
their heredity and environment 
of Boskonianism, were in no 
sense material from which Lens- 
men could be made. 

Subtly, then, and coldly and 
callously, Nadreck worked upon 
the basest passions, the most ig- 
noble traits of that far-from- 
noble race. Jealousy, suspicion, 
fear, greed, revenge — quality by 
quality he grouped them, and to 



each group he sent series after 
series of horridly stimulating 
thoughts. 

Jealousy, always rife, assumed 
fantastic proportions. Molehills 
became mountains overnight. A 
passing word became a studied 
insult. No one aired his griev- 
ances, however, for always and 
everywhere there was fear — fear 
of discipline, fear of reprisal, 
fear of betrayal, fear of the dou- 
ble cross. Each monster 
brooded, sullenly intense. Each 
became bitterly, gallingly, hat- 
ingly aware of an unwarranted 
and intolerable persecution. Not 
much of a spark would be neces- 
sary to touch off such explosive 
material as that! 

Nadreck left the headquarters 
dome until the last. In one sense 
it was the hardest of all; in an- 
other the easiest. It was hard in 
that the entities there had 
stronger minds than those of 
lower station; minds better dis- 
ciplined, minds more accustomed 
to straight thinking and to logi- 
cal reasoning. It was easy, how- 
ever, in that those minds were 
practically all at war already — 
fighting either to tear down the 
one above or to resist the attacks 
of those below. On the whole, 
therefore, the headquarters dome 
was relatively easy, since every 
mind in it already hated, or 
feared, or distrusted, or was sus- 
picious of or jealous of some 
other. 

And while Nadreck labored 
thus deviously his wonders to 
perform, Kinnison went ahead in 
his much more conventional and 
straightforward fashion upon 
Thrale. His first care, of course, 
was to surround himself with 
the usual coterie of spies and 
courtiers. 

The selection of this group 
gave Kinnison many minutes of 
serious thought. It was natural 
enough that he had not been able 
to place any of his own men in 
the secret service of Alcon or 
the prime minister, since they 
both had minds of power. It 
would not be natural, however. 





SECOND STAGE LENSMEN 



101 



for either of them not to be able 
to get an agent into his. For to 
be too good would be to invite 
a mental investigation which he 
simply could not as yet permit. 
He would have to play dumb 
enough so that his hitherto un- 
suspected powers of mind would 
remain unsuspected. 

He could, however, do much. 
Since he knew who the spies 
were, he was able quite fre- 
quently to have his more trusted 
henchmen discover evidence 
against them, branding them for 
what they were. Assassinations 
were then, of course, very much 
in order. And even a strong sus- 
picion, even though it could not 
be documented, was grounds for 
a duel. 

In this fashion, then, Kinnison 
built up his entourage and kept 
it reasonably free from subver- 
sive elements; and, peculiarly 
enough, those elements never 
happened to learn anything 
which the Lensman did not want 
them to know. 

Building up a strong personal 
organization was now easy, for 
at last Kinnison was a real Bos- 
konian big shot. As a major of 
the Household he was a power to 
be toadied to and fawned upon. 
As a personal adviser to Alcon 
the Tyrant he was one whose ill 
will should be avoided at all 
costs. As a tactician who had 
so boldly, and yet so altruisti- 
cally, put the skids under the 
chiefs of staff, thereby becoming 
a favorite even of the dreaded 
prime minister, he was marked 
plainly as a climber to whose 
coat tails it would be wise to 
cling. In short, Kinnison made 
good in a big — it might almost 
be said in a stupendous — way. 

With such powers at work the 
time of reckoning could not be 
delayed for long. Alcon knew 
that Gannel was working against 
him; learned very quickly, since 
he knew exactly the personnel of 
Kinnison’s “private” secret serv- 
ice and could read at will any of 
their minds, that Gannel held 
most of the trumps. The Tyrant 
had tried many times to read the 



major’s mind, but the latter, by 
some subterfuge or other, had 
always managed to elude his in- 
quisitor without making an issue 
of the matter. Now, however, 
Alcon drove in a solid questing 
beam which, he was grimly de- 
termined, would produce results 
af one kind or another. 

It did: but, unfortunately for 
the Thralian, they were nothing 
which he could use. For Kinni- 
son, instead either of allowing 
the Tyrant to read his whole 
mind or of throwing up an all- 
too-revealing barricade, fell back 
upon the sheer native power of 
will which had made him unique 
in his generation. He concen- 
trated upon an all-inclusive ne- 
gation; which in effect was a 
rather satisfactpry block and 
which was entirely natural. 

“I don’t know what you are 
trying to do, Alcon,” he in- 
formed his superior, stiffly, “but 
whatever it is I do not like it. I 
think that you are trying to hyp- 
notize me. If you are, know 
now that you cannot do it; that 
no possible hypnotic force can 
overcome my definitely and posi- 
tively opposed will.” 

“Major Gannel, you will — ” 
the Tyrant began, then stopped. 
He was not quite ready yet to 
come openly to grips with this 
would-be usurper. Besides, it 
was now plain that Gannel had 
only an ordinary mind. He had 
not even suspected all the pry- 
ing that had occurred previously. 
He had not recognized even this 
last powerful thrust for what it 
really was ; he had merely felt it 
vaguely and had supposed that 
it was an attempt at hypnotism! 

A few more days and he would 
cut him down. Hence Alcon 
changed his tone and went on 
smoothly, “It is not hypnotism, 
Major Gannel, but a sort of te- 
lepathy which you cannot un- 
derstand. It is, however, neces- 
sary; for in the case of a man 
occupying such a high position 
as yours, it is self-evident that 
we can permit no secrets what- 
ever to be withheld from us — 
that we can allow no mental res- 



ervations of any kind. You see 
the justice and the necessity of 
that, do you not?” 

Kinnison did. He saw as well 
that Alcon was being superhu- 
manly forbearing. Moreover, he 
knew what the Tyrant was cov- 
ering up so carefully — the real 
reason for this highly unusual 
tolerance. 

“I suppose you are right; but 
I still don’t like it,” Gannel 
grumbled. Then, without either 
denying or acceding to Alcon’s 
right of mental search, he went 
to his own quarters. 

And there — or thereabouts — 
Kinnison wrought diligently at 
a thing which had been long in 
the making. He had known all 
along that his retinue would be 
useless against Alcon, hence he 
had built up an organization en- 
tirely separate from, and com- 
pletely unknown to any member 
of, his visible following. Nor 
was this really secret outfit com- 
posed of spies or sycophants. 
Instead, its members were hard, 
able, thoroughly proven men, 
each one carefully selected for 
the ability and the desire to take 
the place of one of Alcon’s pres- 
ent department heads. One at a 
time he put himself en rapport 
with them; gave them certain 
definite orders and instructions. 

Then he put on a mechanical 
thought-screen. Its use could 
not make the prime minister any 
more suspicious than he already 
was, and it was the only way he 
could remain in character. This 
screen was, like those of Lona- 
bar, decidedly pervious in that 
it had an open slit. Unlike 
Bleeko’s, however, which had 
their slits set upon a fixed fre- 
quency, the open channel of this 
one could be varied, both in 
width and in wave length, to any 
setting which Kinnison desired. 

Thus equipped, Kinnison at- 
tended the meeting of the Coun- 
cil of Advisers, and to say that 
he disrupted the meeting is no 
exaggeration. The other ad- 
visers perceived nothing out of 
the ordinary, of course, but both 



102 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 




Alcon and the prime minister guage. “This thing of being sume my status as an officer of 
were so perturbed that the ses- spied upon continuously, both the line, but I cannot and will 
sion was cut very short indeed, by men and by mechanisms, not tolerate your extinction of 
The other members were dis- while it is insulting and revolt- the last spark of my self-re- 
missed summarily, with no at- ing to any real man’s self-re- spect,” he finished, stubbornly, 
tempt at explanation. The Ty- spect, can — just barely — be “Resign? Resume? Do you 

rant was raging, furious ; the borne. I find it impossible, how- think that I will let you off that 

premier was alertly, watchfully ever, to force myself to submit easily, fool?” Alcon sneered, 

intent. to such an ultimately degrading “Don’t you realize what I am 

“I did not expect any more humiliation as the surrender of going to do to you? That, were 
physical privacy than I have been the only vestiges of privacy I it not for the fact that I am go- 
granted,” Kinnison grated, after have remaining; those of my ing to watch you die slowly and 
listening quietly to a minute or mind. I will resign from the hideously, I would have you 
two of Alcon’s unbridled Ian- Council if you wish, I will re- blasted where you stand?” 






SECOND STAGE LENSMEN 



103 



“I do not, no, and neither do 
you,” Gannel answered, as 
quietly as surprisingly. “If you 
were sure of your ability, you 
would be doing something in- 
stead of talking about it.” He 
saluted, turned, and walked out. 

Now the prime minister, as has 
been intimated, was considerably 
more than he appeared upon the 
surface to be. He was in fact 
the power behind the throne. 
His, not Alcon’s, was the voice 
of authority, although he worked 
so subtly that the Tyrant him- 
self never did realize that he was 
little better than a figurehead. 

Therefore, as Gannel departed, 
the premier thought briefly but 
cogently. This major was smart 
— too smart. He was too able, he 
knew too much. His advance- 
ment had been just a trifle too 
rapid. That thought-screen was 
an entirely unexpected develop- 
ment. The mind behind it was 
not quite right, either — a 

glimpse through the slit had re- 
vealed a flash of something that 
might be taken to indicate that 
Major Gannel had an ability 
which ordinary Thralians did 
not have. This open defiance of 
the Tyrant of Thrale did not 
ring exactly true — it was not 
quite in character. If it had 
been a bluff, it was too good — 
much too good. If it had not 
been a bluff, where was his sup- 
port? How could Gannel have 
grown so powerful without his, 
Fossteu’s, knowledge? 

If Major Gannel were bona 
fide, all well and good. Bos- 
konia needed the strongest pos- 
sible leaders, and if any other 
man showed himself superior to 
Alcon, Alcon should and would 
die. However, there was a bare 
possibility that — Was Gannel 
bona fide? That point should be 
cleared up wdthout delay. And 
the prime minister, after a quiz- 
zical, searching, more than half 
contemptuous inspection of the 
furiously discomfited Tyrant, 
followed the rebellious, the con- 
tumacious, the enigmatic Gan- 
nel to his rooms. 

He knocked and was admitted. 



A preliminary and entirely 
meaningless conversation oc- 
curred. Then; 

“Just when did you leave 
Eddore?” the visitor demanded. 

“What do you want to know 
for?” Kinnison shot back. That 
question didn’t mean a thing to 
him. Maybe it didn’t to the big 
fellow, either — it could be just a 
catch — but he didn’t intend to 
give any kind of an analyzable 
reply to any question that this 
ape asked him. 

Nor did he, through thirty 
minutes of viciously skillful ver- 
bal fencing. That conversation 
was far from meaningless, but it 
was entirely unproductive of re- 
sults; and it was a baffled, in- 
tensely thoughtful Fossten who 
at its conclusion left Gannel’s 
quarters. From those quarters 
he went to the Hall of Records, 
where he requisitioned the ma- 
jor’s dossier. Then to his own 
private laboratory, where he ap- 
plied to those records every test 
known to the scientists of his 
ultrasuspicious race. 

The photographs were right in 
every detail. The prints agreed 
exactly with those he himself 
had secured from the subject not 
twenty-four hours since. The 
typing was right. The ink was 
right. Everything checked. And 
why not? Ink, paper, fiber, and 
film were in fact exactly what 
they should have been. There 
had been no erasures, no altera- 
tions. Everything had been aged 
to the precisely correct number 
of days. For Kinnison had 
known that this check-up was 
coming, and the experts of the 
Patrol would make no such crass 
errors as those. 

Even though he had found ex- 
actly what he had expected to 
find, the suspicions of the prime 
minister were intensified rather 
than allayed. Besides his own, 
there were two unreadable 
minds upon Thrale, where there 
should have been only one. He 
knew how Alcon’s had been 
treated — could Gannel’s possibly 
be a natural phenomenon? If 



not, who had treated it, and 
why? 

He left the palace then, os- 
tensibly to attend a function at 
the military academy. There, 
too, everything checked. He 
visited the town in which Gan- 
nel had been born — finding no 
irregularities whatever in the 
records of the birth. He went to 
the city in which Gannel had 
lived for the greater part of his 
life; where he assured himself 
that school records, club records, 
even photographs and negatives, 
all dead-centered the beam. 

He studied the minds of six 
different persons who had known 
Gannel from childhood. As one 
they agreed that the Traska 
Gannel who was now Traska 
Gannel was in fact the real 
Traska Gannel, and could not by 
any possibility be anyone else. 
He examined their memory 
tracks minutely for scars, breaks, 
or other evidences of surgery; 
finding none. In fact, none ex- 
isted, for the therapists who had 
performed those operations had 
gone back clear to the very be- 
ginnings, to the earliest memo- 
ries of the Gannel child. 

In spite of the fact that all 
the data thus far investigated 
were so precisely what they 
should have been — or because of 
it — the prime minister was now 
morally certain that Gannel was, 
in some fashion or other, com- 
pletely spurious. Should he go 
further, delve into unimportant 
but perhaps highly revealing 
side issues? It would be use- 
less, he decided. The mind or 
minds who had falsified those 
records so flawlessly — if they 
had in fact been falsified — had 
done a beautiful piece of work; 
as masterly a job as he himself 
could have done. He himself 
would have left no traces; nei- 
ther, in all probability, had they. 

Who, then, and why? This 
was no ordinary plot, no part of 
any ordinary scheme to over- 
throw Alcon. It was bigger, 
deeper, far more sinister. Noth- 
ing so elaborate and efficient 
originating upon Thrale could 




104 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



possibly have been developed 
and executed without his knowl- 
edge and at least his tacit con- 
sent. Was there behind this 
thing someone who knew who 
and what he was and who was 
seeking his life and his place? 
Highly improbable. No — it must 
be — it was — the Patrol ! 

His mind flashed to Star A 
Star, reviewing everything that 
had been ascribed to that mys- 
terious personage. Then some- 
thing clicked — in fact, it stuck 
out. 

BLAKESLEE! 

This was much finer than the 
Blakeslee affair, of course; more 
subtle and more polished by far. 
It was not nearly as obvious, as 
blatant, but the basic similarity 
was nevertheless there. Could 
this similarity have been acci- 
dental? No — unthinkable. In 
this undertaking accidents could 
be ruled out — definitely. What- 
ever had been done had been 
done deliberately and after me- 
ticulous preparation. 

But Star A Star never re- 
peated. Therefore, this time, he 
had repeated ; deliberately, to 
throw Alcon and his psycholo- 
gists off the trail. But he, Fos- 
sten, was not to be deceived by 
even such clever tactics. 

Gannel was, then, really Gan- 
nel, just as Blakeslee had really 
been Blakeslee. Blakeslee had 
obviously been under control. 
Here, however, there were two 
possibilities. First, Gannel might 
be under similar control. Sec- 
ond, Star A Star might have op- 
erated upon Gannel’s mind so 
radically as to make an entirely 
different man of him. Either 
hypothesis would explain Gan- 
nel’s extreme reticence in sub- 
mitting to any except the most 
superficial mental examination. 
Each would account for Gannel’s 
calm certainty that Alcon was 
afraid to attack him openly. 
Which of these hypotheses was 
the correct one could be deter- 
mined later. It was unimpor- 
tant, anyway, for in either case 
there was now accounted for the 



heretofore inexplicable power of 
Gannel’s mind. 

In either case it was not Gan- 
nel’s mind at all, but that of 
THE Lensman, who was making 
Gannel act as he could not nor- 
mally have acted. Somewhere 
hereabouts, in either case, there 
actually was lurking Boskonia’s 
Nemesis; the mentality whom 
above all others Boskonia was 
raving to destroy; the one Lens- 
man who had never been seen or 
heard or perceived; the feared 
and detested Lensman about 
whom nothing whatever had ever 
been learned. 

That Lensman, whoever he 
might be, had at last met his 
match. Gannel, as Gannel, was 
of no importance whatever; the 
veriest pawn. But he who stood 
behind Gannel — Ah! He, Fos- 
sten himself, would wait and he 
would watch. Then, at precisely 
the correct instant, he would 
pounce! 

And Kinnison, during the ab- 
sence of the prime minister, 
worked swiftly and surely. 
Twelve men died, and as they 
ceased to live twelve others, 
grimly ready and thoroughly 
equipped for any emergency, 
took their places. And during 
that same minute of time Kinni- 
son strode into Alcon’s private 
sanctum. 

The Tyrant hurled orders to 
his guards — orders which were 
not obeyed. He then went for 
his own weapons, and he was 
fast — ^but Kinnison was faster. 
Alcon’s guns and hands disap- 
peared and the sickened Tel- 
lurian slugged him into uncon- 
sciousness. Then grimly, re- 
lentlessly, he took every item 
of interest from the Thralian’s 
mind, slew him, and assumed 
forthwith the title and the full 
authority of the Tyrant of 
Thrale. 

Unlike most such revolutions, 
this one was accomplished with 
very little bloodshed and with 
scarcely any interference with 
the business of the realm. In- 
deed, if anything, there was an 



improvement in almost every re- 
spect, since the new men were 
more thoroughly trained and 
were more competent than the 
previous officers had been. Also, 
they had arranged matters be- 
forehand so that their acces- 
sions could be made with a mini- 
mum of friction. 

They were as yet loyal to Kin- 
nison and to Boskonia; and in a 
rather faint hope of persuading 
them to stay that way, without 
developing any queer ideas 
anent in turn overthrowing him, 
the Lensman called them into 
conference. 

“Men, you know how you got 
where you are,” he began, coldly. 
“You are loyal to me at the mo- 
ment. You know that real co- 
operation is the only way to 
achieve maximum productivity, 
and that true co-operation can- 
not exist in any regime in which 
the department heads, individu- 
ally or en masse, are trying to 
do away with the dictator. 

“Some of you will probably be 
tempted very shortly to begin to 
work against me instead of for 
me and with me. I am not plead- 
ing with you, nor even asking 
you out of gratitude for what I 
have done for you, to refrain 
from such activities. Instead, I 
am telling you as a simple matter 
of fact that any or all of you, at 
the first move toward any such 
disloyalty, will die. In that con- 
nection, I know that all of you 
have been exerting every re- 
source to discover in what man- 
ner your predecessors came so 
conveniently to die, and that 
none of you have succeeded.” 

One by one they admitted that 
they had not. 

“Nor will you, ever. Be ad- 
vised that I know vastly more 
than Alcon did, and that I am far 
more powerful. Alcon, while in 
no sense a weakling, did not 
know how to command obedi- 
ence. I do. Alcon’s sources of 
information were meager and 
untrustworthy; mine are com- 
prehensive and reliable. Alcon 
very often did not know that 
anything was being plotted 




SECOND STAGE LENSMEN 



105 



against him until the thing was 
well along; I shall always know 
of the first seditious move. Al- 
con blustered, threatened, and 
warned ; he tortured ; he gave 
some offenders a second chance 
before he killed. I shall do none 
of those things. I do not 
threaten, I do not warn, I do not 
torture. Above all, I give no 
snake a second chance to strike 
at me. I execute traitors with- 
out bluster or fanfare. For your 
own good, gentlemen, I advise 
you in all seriousness to believe 
that I mean precisely every word 
that I have uttered.” 

They slunk out, but Boskonian 
habit was too strong. Thus, 
within three days, three cjf Kin- 
nison’s newly appointed head- 
men died. He called another 
cabinet meeting. 

“The three new members have 
listened to the recording of our 
first meeting, hence there is no 
need to repeat what I said at 
that time,” the Tyrant an- 
nounced, in a voice so silkily 
venomous that his listeners 
cringed. “I will add to it merely 
that I will have full co-opera- 
tion, and onlv co-operation, if I 
have to kill all of you and all of 
your successors to get it. You 
may go,” 

XX. 

This killing made Kinnison 
ill ; physically and mentally sick. 
It was ruthless, cowardly mur- 
der. It was worse than stabbing 
a man in the back; the poor dev- 
ils didn’t have even the faintest 
shadow of a chance. Neverthe- 
less he did it. 

When he had first invaded the 
stronghold of the Wheelmen of 
Aldebaran I. he had acted with- 
out thinking at all. Lensmen al- 
ways went in, regardless of con- 
sequences. When he had scouted 
Jarnevon he had thought but lit- 
tle more. True — and fortunately 
— he took Worsel along; but he 
did not stop to consider whether 
or not there were minds in the 
Patrol better fitted to cope with 
the problem than was his own. 
It was his problem, he figured, 



and it was up to him to solve it. 

Now, however, he knew bit- 
terly that he could no longer act 
in that comparatively thought- 
less fashion. At whatever loss 
of self-esteem, of personal stat- 
ure, or of standing, he had to re- 
vise the Tellurian Lensmen’s 
Code. It griped him to admit it, 
but Nadreck was right. It was 
not enough to give his life in an 
attempt to conquer a halfway 
station; he must remain alive in 
order to follow through to com- 
pletion the job which was so 
uniquely his. He must think, as- 
saying and evaluating every fac- 
tor of his entire task. Then, 
without considering his own per- 
sonal feelings, he must employ 
whatever forces and methods 
were best fitted to do the work 
at the irreducible minimum of 
cost and of risk. 

Thus Kinnison sat unharmed 
upon the throne of the Tyrant 
of Thrale, and thus the prime 
minister returned to the palace 
to find a fait accompli awaiting 
him. That worthy studied with 
care every aspect of the situa- 
tion then obtaining before he 
sought an audience with the new 
potentate. 

“Allow me to congratulate 
you. Tyrant Gannel,” he said, 
smoothly. “I cannot say that I 
am surprised, since I have been 
watching you and your activi- 
ties for some little time-^with 
distinct approval, I may add. 
You have fulfilled — ^more than 
fulfilled, perhaps — my expecta- 
tions. Your regime is function- 
ing superbly; you have estab- 
lished in this very short time a 
smoothness of operation and an 
esprit de corps among the rank 
and file which are decidedly un- 
usual. There are, however, cer- 
tain matters about which it is 
possible that you are not com- 
pletely informed.” 

“It is possible,” Kinnison 
agreed, with the merest trace of 
irony. “Such as?” 

“In good time. You know, do 
you not, who is the real author- 
ity here upon Thrale?” 

“I know who was,” the Tel- 



lurian corrected, with the faint- 
est perceptible accent upon the 
verb. “In part only, however, 
for if you had concerned your- 
self wholly, the late Alcon would 
not have made so many nor so 
serious mistakes.” 

“I thank you. That is, as of 
course you know, because I have 
only recently taken over. I want 
the Tyrant of Thrale to be the 
strongest man of Thrale, and I 
may say without flattery that I 
believe he now is. And I would 
suggest that you add ‘sire’ when 
you speak to me.” 

“I thank you in turn. I will 
so address you when you call me 
‘your supremacy’ — not sooner.” 
“We will let it pass for the 
moment. To come to your ques- 
tion, you apparently do not know 
that the Tyrant of Thrale, who- 
ever he may be, opens his mind 
to me.” 

“I have suspected that such a 
condition has existed in the past. 
However, please be informed 
that I trust fully only those who 
so trust me; and that thus far in 
my short life such persons have 
been few. You will observe that 
I am still respecting your pri- 
vacy in that I am allowing your 
control of my sense of sight to 
continue. It is not because I 
trust you, but because your true 
appearance is to me a matter of 
complete indifference. For, 
frankly, I do not trust you at all. 
I will open my mind to you just 
exactly as wide as you will open 
yours to me — ^no wider.” 

“Ah — the bravery of igno- 
rance. It is as I thought. You 
do not realize, Gannel, that I can 
slay you at any moment I choose, 
or that a very few more words 
of defiance from you will be 
enough.” The prime minister 
did not raise his voice, but his 
tone was instinct with menace. ' 
“I do not, and neither do you, 
as I remarked to the then Tyrant 
Alcon in this very room not long 
ago. I am sure that you will un- 
derstand without elaboration the 
connotations and implications 
inherent in that remark.” Kin- 



106 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



nison’s voice also was low and 
level, freighted in its every 
clipped syllable with the calm 
assurance of power. “Would 
you be interested in knowing 
why I am so certain that you 
will not accept my suggestion of 
a mutual opening of minds?” 

“Very much so.” 

“Because I suspect that you 
are, or are in league with. Star 
A Star of the Galactic Patrol.” 
Even at that astounding charge, 
Fossten gave no sign of surprise 
or of shock. “I have not been 
able as yet to obtain any evi- 
dence supporting that belief, but 
I tell you now that when I do so, 
you die. Not by power of 
thought, either, but in the beam 
of my personal ray gun,” 

“Ah — you interest me so 
strangely,” and the premier’s 
hand strayed almost impercep- 
tibly toward an inconspicuous 
button. 

“Don’t touch that switch!” 
Kinnison snapped. He did not 
quite see why Fossten was let- 
ting him see the maneuver, but 
he would bite, anyway. 

“Why not, may I ask? It is 
merely a — ” 

“I know what it is, and I do 
not like thought-screens. I pre- 
fer that my mind be left free to 
roam.” 

Fossten’s thoughts raced in 
turn. Since the Tyrant was on 
guard, this was inconclusive. It 
might — or might not — indicate 
that Gannel was controlled by or 
in communication with Star A 
Star. 

“Do not be childish,” he 
chided. “You know as well as I 
do that your accusations are ab- 
surd. However, as I reconsider 
the matter, the fact that neither 
of us trusts unreservedly the 
other may not after all be an in- 
superable obstacle to our work- 
ing together for the good of 
Boskonia. I think now more 
than ever that yours is the 
strongest Thralian mind, and as 
such, the logical one to wield 
the Tyrant’s power. It would be 
a shame to destroy you unnec- 
essarily, especially in view of 



the probability that you will 
come later of your own accord 
to see the reasonableness of that 
which I have suggested.” 

“It is possible,” Kinnison ad- 
mitted, “but not, I would say, 
probable.” He thought that he 
knew why the lug had pulled in 
his horns, but he wasn’t sure. 
“Now that we have clarified our 
attitudes toward each other, have 
decided upon an armed and sus- 
picious truce, I see nothing to 
prevent us from working to- 
gether in a completely harmoni- 
ous mutual distrust for the good 
of all. The first thing to do, as 
I see it, is to devote our every 
effort to the destruction of the 
planet Klovia and all the Patrol 
forces based upon it.” 

“Right.” If Fossten suspected 
that the Tyrant was somewhat 
less than frank, he did not show 
it, and the conversation became 
strictly technical. 

“We must not strike until we 
are completely ready,” was Kin- 
nison’s first statement, and he re- 
peated it so often thereafter dur- 
ing the numerous conferences 
with the chiefs of staff that it 
came almost to be a slogan. 

The prime minister did not 
know that Kinnison’s main pur- 
pose was to give the Patrol 
plenty of time to make Klovia 
utterly impregnable. Fossten 
knew nothing of the Patrol’s 
sunbeam, to which even the 
mightiest fortress possible for 
man to build could offer scarcely 
more resistance than could the 
lightest, the most fragile pleas- 
ure yacht. 

Hence he grew more and more 
puzzled, more and more at a loss 
week by week, as Tyrant Gan- 
nel kept on insisting upon build- 
ing up the strongest, the most 
logically perfect Grand Fleet 
which all the ability of their 
pooled brains could devise. Once 
or twice he offered criticisms 
and suggestions which, while de- 
fensible according to one the- 
ory, would actually have weak- 
ened Grand Fleet’s striking 
power. These offerings Gannel 



rejected flatly; insisting, even to 
an out-and-out break with his 
co-administrator if necessary, 
upon the strongest possible ar- 
mada. 

The Tyrant wanted, and de- 
clared that he must and would 
have, more and bigger of every- 
thing. More and heavier flying 
fortresses, more and stronger 
battleships and superdread- 
noughts, more and faster cruis- 
ers and scouts, more and dead- 
lier weapons. 

“We want more of everything 
than our operations officers can 
possibly handle in battle,” he de- 
clared over and over; and he got 
them. Then : 

“Now, you operations officers, 
learn how to handle them!” he 
commanded. 

Even the prime minister pro- 
tested at that, but it was finally 
accomplished. Fristen was a 
real thinker, as was Kinnison, 
and between them they worked 
out a system. It was crudeness 
and inefficiency incarnate in 
comparison with the Z9M9Z, but 
it was so much better than any- 
thing previously known to Bos- 
konia’s High Command that 
everyone was delighted. Even 
the suspicious and cynical Fos- 
sten began to entertain some 
doubts as to the infallibility of 
his own judgment. 

And these doubts grew apace 
as the Tyrant drilled his Grand 
Fleet, He drove the personnel 
unmercifully, especially the 
operations officers; as relent- 
lessly as he drove himself. He 
simply could not be satisfied, his 
ardor and lust for efficiency 
were insatiable. His reprimands 
were scathingly accurate; officer 
after officer he demoted bitingly 
during ever more complicated, 
ever more inhumanly difficult 
maneuvers; until finally he had 
what were unquestionably his 
best men in those supremely im- 
portant positions. Then, one 
day: 

“QX, Kim, come ahead — we’re 
ready,” Haynes Lensed him, 
briefly. 

For Kinnison had been in 





SECOND STAGE LENSMEN 



107 



touch with the port admiral 
every day. He had learned long 
since that the prime minister 
could not detect a Lensed 
thought, particularly when the 
Lensman was wearing a thought- 
screen, as he did practically con- 
stantly; wherefore the strate- 
gists of the Patrol were as well 



said little if anything as to the 
actual method of approach?” 
The prime minister had indeed 
noticed that peculiar oversight, 
and said so. Here, undoubtedly, 
he thought, was the rub. Here 
was where Star A Star’s minion 
would get in his dirty work, 

“I have thought about it at 



you full authority and let you 
handle the approach in any man- 
ner you please. I shall, of 
course, direct the actual battle, 
as in that I shall again be upon 
familiar ground.” 

The premier was flabbergasted. 
This was incredible. Gannel 
must really be working for Bos- 




informed as was Kinnison him- 
self of every move made by the 
Boskonians. 

Then Kinnison called Fossten, 
and was staring glumly at noth- 
ing when the latter entered the 
room. 

“Well, it would seem that we 
are about as nearly ready as we 
ever will be,” the Tyrant 
brooded, pessimistically. “Have 
you any suggestions, criticisms, 
or other contributions to offer, 
of however minor a nature?” 
“None whatever. You have 
done very well indeed.” 
“Unnhh,” Gannel grunted, 
without enthusiasm. “You have 
observed, no doubt, that T have 



length,” Kinnison said, still in 
his brown study. “But I know 
enough to recognize and to ad- 
mit my own limitations. I do 
know tactics and strategy, and 
thus far I have worked with 
only known implements toward 
known objectives. That condi- 
tion, however, no longer exists. 
The simple fact is that I do not 
know enough about the possibili- 
ties, the techniques and the po- 
tentialities, the advantages and 
the disadvantages of the hyper- 
spatial tube as an avenue of ap- 
proach to enable me to come to 
a defensible decision one way or 
the other, I have decided, there- 
fore, that if you have any prefer- 
ence in the matter I will give 



konia after all, to make such a 
decision as that. Still skeptical, 
unprepared for such a startling 
development as that one was, he 
temporized. 

“The bad — the very bad — fea- 
tures of the approach via tube 
are two,” he pondered aloud. 
“We have no means of knowing 
anything about what happens; 
and, since our previous such ven- 
ture was a total failure, we must 
assume that, contrary to our 
plans and expectations, the 
enemy was not taken by sur- 
prise.” 

“Right,” Kinnison concurred, 
tonelessly. 

“Upon the other hand, an ap- 
proach via open space, while 





108 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



conducive to the preservation o,£ 
our two lives, would be seen 
from afar and would certainly 
be met by an appropriate forma- 
tion.” 

“Check,” came emotionlessly 
noncommittal agreement. 

“Haven’t you the slightest 
bias, one way or the other?” 
Fossten demanded, incredu- 
lously. 

“None whatever,” the Tyrant 
was coldly matter-of-fact. “If I 
had had any such, I would have 
ordered the approach made in 
the fashion I preferred. Having 
none, I delegated authority to 
you. When I delegate authority 
I do so without reservations.” 

This was a stopper. 

“Let it be open space, then,” 
the prime minister finally de- 
cided. 

“So be it.” And so it was. 

Each of the component flotil- 
las of Grand Fleet made a flying 
trip to some nearby base, where 
each unit was serviced. Every 
item of mechanism and of equip- 
ment was checked and re- 
checked. Stores were replen- 
ished, and munitions — especially 
munitions. Then the mighty ar- 
mada, the most frightfully pow- 
erful aggregation every to fly 
for Boskohia — the mightiest fleet 
ever assembled anywhere, ac- 
cording to the speeches of the 
politicians — remade its stupen- 
dous formation and set out for 
Klovia. And as it flew through 
space, shortly before contact was 
made with the Patrol’s Grand 
Fleet, the premier called Kin- 
nison into the control room. 

“Gannel, I simply cannot make 
you out,” he remarked, after 
studying him fixedly for five 
minutes. “You have offered no 
advice. You have not interfered 
with my handling of the Fleet in 
any way. Nevertheless, I still 
suspect you of treacherous in- 
tentions. I have been suspicious 
of you from the first — ” 

“With no grounds whatever 
for your suspicions,” Kinnison 
reminded him, coldly. 

“What? With all the reason 



possible!” Fossten declared. 
“Have you not steadily refused 
to bare your mind to me?” 

“Certainly. Why not? Do we 
have to go over that again? Just 
how do you figure that I should 
so trust any being who refuses 
to reveal even his true shape to 
me?” 

“That is for your own good,” 
the prime minister stated. “I 
have not wanted to tell you this, 
but the truth is that no human 
being can perceive my true self 
and retain his sanity.” 

“I’ll take a chance on that,” 
Kinnison replied, skeptically. 
“I’ve seen a lot of monstrous en- 
tities in my time and I haven’t 
conked out yet.” 

“There speaks the sheer folly 
of callow youth; the rashness of 
an ignorance so abysmal as to 
be possible only to one of your 
ephemeral race.” The voice 
deepened, became more resonant. 
Kinnison, staring into those in- 
scrutable eyes which he knew 
did not in fact exist, thrilled 
forebodingly; the timbre and the 
overtones of that voice reminded 
him very disquietingly of some- 
thing which he could not at the 
moment recall to mind. “I for- 
bear to discipline you, not from 
any doubt as to my ability to do 
so, as you suppose, but because 
of the sure knowledge that 
breaking you by force will de- 
stroy your usefulness. On the 
other hand, it is certain that if 
you co-operate with me willingly 
you will be the strongest, ablest 
leader that Boskonia has ever 
had. Think well upon these mat- 
ters, O Tyrant.” 

“I will,” the Lensman agreed, 
more seriously than he had in- 
tended. “But just what, if any- 
thing, has led you to believe that 
I am not working to the fullest 
and best of my ability for Bos- 
konia?” 

“Everything.” Fossten sum- 
marized. “I have been able to 
find no flaw in your actions, but 
those actions do not fit in with 
your unexplained and apparently 
unexplainable reticence in let- 
ting me perceive for myself ex- 



actly what is in your mind. 
Furthermore, you have never 
even troubled to deny accusa- 
tions that you are in fact playing 
a far deeper game than you ap- 
pear upon the surface to be play- 
ing.” 

“That reticence I have ex- 
plained over and over as an over- 
mastering repugnance — call it a 
phobia if you like,” Kinnison re- 
joined, wearily. “I simply can’t 
and won’t. Since you cannot un- 
derstand that, denials would 
have been entirely useless. 
Would you believe anything that 
I could possibly say — that I 
would swear to by everything I 
hold sacred — whether it was that 
I am wholeheartedly loyal to 
Boskonia or that I am in fact 
Star A Star himself?” 

“Probably not,” came the 
measured reply. “No, certainly 
not. Men — especially men such 
as you, bent ruthlessly upon the 
acquisition of power — are liars 
. . . ah, could it, by any chance, 
be that the reason for your in- 
tractability is that you have the 
effrontery to entertain some in- 
sane idea of supplanting ME?” 

Kinnison jumped mentally. 
That tore it — that was a flare-lit 
tip-off. This man — this thing — 
being — entity — ^whatever he 
really was — instead of being just 
another Boskonian big shot, 
must be the clear quill — the real 
McCoy--BOSKONE HIM- 
SELF ! The end of the job must 
be right here! This was — must 
be — the real Brain for whom he 
had been searching so long ; here 
within three feet of him sat the 
creature with whom he had been 
longing so fervently to come to 
grips ! 

“The reason is as I have said,” 
the Tellurian stated, quietly. “I 
will attempt to make no secret, 
however, of a fact which you 
must already have deduced ; that 
if and when it becomes apparent 
that you have any authority 
above or beyond that of the Ty- 
rant of Thrale I shall take it 
away from you. Why not? 
Now that I have come so far. 





SECOND STAGE LENSMEN 



109 



why should I not aspire to sit in 
the highest seat of all?” 

“Hrrummphhh!” the monster 
— Kinnison could no longer 
think of him as Fossten, or as 
the prime minister, or as any- 
thing even remotely human — 
snorted with such utter, such 
searing contempt that even the 
Lensman’s burly spirit quailed. 
“As well might you attempt to 
pit your vaunted physical 
strength against that of the 
heaviest forging ram ever built. 
Now, youth, have done. The 
time for temporizing is past. As 
I have said, I desire to spare 
you, as I wish you to rule this 
part of Boskonia as my viceroy. 
Know, however, that you are in 
no sense essential, and that if 
you do not yield your mind fully 
to mine, here and now, before 
this coming battle is joined, you 
most certainly die.” At the grim 
finality, the calmly assured cer- 
tainty of the pronouncement, a 
quick chill struck into the Gray 
Lensman’s vitals. 

This thing who called him- 
self Fossten — who or what was 
he? What was it that he re- 
minded him of? He thought and 
talked like . . . like . . . MEN- 
TOR! But it couldn’t be an 
Arisian, possibly — that wouldn’t 
make sense. But then, it didn’t 
make any kind of sense, any- 
way, any way you looked at it. 
Whoever he was, he had plenty 
of jets — jets enough to lift a 
freighter off of the north pole 
of Valeria. And by the same 
token, his present line of talk 
didn’t make sense, either — there 
must be some good reason why 
he hadn’t made a real pass at 
him long before this, instead of 
arguing with him so patiently. 
What could it be? Oh, that was 
it, of course. He needed only a 
few minutes more, now ; he 
could probably stall off the final 
showdown that long by crawling 
a bit — much as it griped him to 
let this zwilnik think that he was 
licking his boots. 

“Your forbearance is appre- 
ciated, sire.” At the apparently 
unconscious tribute to superior- 



ity and at the fact that the 
hitherto completely self-pos- 
sessed Tyrant got up and began 
to pace nervously up and down 
the control room, the prime min- 
ister’s austere mien softened ap- 
preciably. “It is, however, pass- 
ing strange. It is not quite in 
character ; it does not check 
quite satisfactorily with the 
facts thus far revealed. I may, 
perhaps, as you say, be stupid. 
I may be overestimating fla- 
grantly my own abilities. To 
one of my temperament, how- 
ever, to surrender in such a cra- 
ven fashion as you demand 
comes hard — extremely, almost 
unbearably hard. It would be 
easier, I think, if your suprem- 
acy would condescend to reveal 
his true identity, thereby mak- 
ing plainly evident and manifest 
that which at present must be 
left to unsupported words, sur- 
mise, and not too much convic- 
tion.” 

“But I told you, and now tell 
you again, that for you to look 
upon my real form is to lose 
your reason!” the creature 
rasped. 

“What do you care, really, 
whether or not I remain sane?” 
Kinnison shot his bolt at last, in 
what he hoped would be taken 
for a last resurgence of spirit. 
His time was about up. In less 
than one minute now the screens 
of scout cruisers would be in en- 
gagement, and either he or the 
prime minister or both would be 
expected to be devoting every 
cell of their brains to the all- 
important battle of giants. And 
in that very nick of time he 
would have to cripple the Ber- 
genholms and thus inert the 
flagship. “Could it be that the 
real reason for your otherwise 
inexplicable forbearance is that 
you must know how my mind be- 
came as it now is, and that the 
breaking down of my barriers by 
mental force will destroy the 
knowledge which you, for your 
own security, must have?” 

This was the blowoff. Kinni- 
son still paced the room, but his 



pacings took him nearer and ever 
nearer to a certain control panel. 
Behind his thought-screen, 
which he could not now trust 
for a moment and which he knew 
starkly would be worse than use- 
less in what was coming, he mus- 
tered every iota of his tremen- 
dous force of mind and of will. 
Only seconds now. His left 
hand, thrust into his breeches 
pocket, grasped the cigarette 
case within which reposed his 
Lens. His right arm and hand 
were tensely ready to draw and 
to fire his ray gun. 

“Die, then! I should have 
known from the sheer perfection 
of your work that you were what 
you really are — Star A Star!” 

The mental blast came ahead 
even of the first word, but the 
Gray Lensman, supremely ready, 
was already in action. One 
quick thrust of his chin flicked 
off the thought-screen. The 
shielded cigarette case flew open, 
his more-than-half-alive Lens 
blazed again upon his massive 
wrist. His weapon leaped out of 
its scabbard, flaming destruction 
as it came — a ravening tongue of 
incandescent fury which licked 
out of existence in the twinkling 
of an eye the Bergenholms’ con- 
trol panels and the operators 
clustered before it. The vessel 
went inert — ^much work would 
have to be done before the Bos- 
konian flagship could again fly 
free! 

These matters required only a 
fraction of a second. Well in- 
deed it was that they did not 
take longer, for the ever-mount- 
ing fury of the prime minister’s 
attack soon necessitated more — 
much more — than an automatic 
block, however capable. But 
Kimball Kinnison, Gray Lens- 
man, Lensman of Lensmen, had 
more — ever so much more — than 
that! 

He whirled, lips thinned over 
tight-set teeth in a savage fight- 
ing grin. Now he’d see what 
this zwilnik was and what he 
had. No fear, no doubt of the 




110 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



outcome, entered his mind. He 
had suffered such punishment as 
few minds have ever endured in 
learning to ward off everything 
that Mentor, one of the mighti- 
est intellects of this or of any 
other universe, could send; but 
through that suffering he had 
learned. This unknown entity 
was an able operator, of course, 
but he certainly had a thick, 
hard crust to think that he could 
rub him out! 

So thinking, the Lensraan 
hurled a bolt of his own, a blast 
of power sufficient to have slain 
a dozen men — and, amazedly, 
saw it rebound harmlessly from 
the premier’s hard-held block. 

Which of the two combatants 
was the more surprised it would 
be hard to say ; each had consid- 
ered his own mind impregnable 
and invincible. Now, as the 
prime minister perceived how as- 
toundingly capable a .foe he 
faced, he sought to summon help 
by ordering the officers on duty 
to blast their Tyrant down. In 
vain. For, even so early in that 
ultimately lethal struggle, he 
could not spare enough of his 
mind to control effectively any 
outsider; and in a matter of sec- 
onds there were no minds left 
throughout that entire room in 
any condition to be controlled. 

For the first reverberations, 
the ricochets, the spent forces of 
the monster’s attack against Kin- 
nison’s shield had wrought 
grievously among the mentali- 
ties of the innocent bystanders. 
Those forces were deadly — 
deadly beyond telling — so ini- 
mical to and destructive of in- 
telligence that even their trans- 
formation products affected 
tremendously the nervous sys- 
tems of all within range. 

Then, instants later, the spec- 
tacle of the detested and sear- 
ingly feared Lens scintillating 
balefully upon the wrist of their 
own ruler was an utterly inex- 
pressible shock. Some of the 
officers tried then to go for their 
guns, but it was already too late ; 
their shaking, trembling, almost 



paralyzed muscles could not be 
forced to function. 

An even worse shock followed 
almost instantly, for the prime 
minister, under the incredibly 
mounting intensity of the Lens- 
man’s poignant thrusts, found it 
necessary to concentrate his 
every iota of power upon his op- 
ponent, This revealed to all be- 
holders, except Kinnison, what 
their prime minister actually 
was — and he had not been very 
much wrong in saying that that 
sight would drive any human be- 
ing mad. Most of the Boskoni- 
ans did go mad, then and there; 
but they did not rush about nor 
scream. They could not move 
purposefully, but only twitched 
and writhed horribly as they lay 
grotesquely asprawl. They could 
not scream or shriek, but only 
mouthed and mumbled meaning- 
less burblings. 

And ever higher, ever more 
brilliant flamed the Lens as Kin- 
nison threw all of his prodigious 
will power, all of his tremen- 
dous, indomitable drive, through 
it and against the incredibly re- 
sistant thing to which he was 
opposed. This was the supreme, 
the climactic battle of his life 
thus far. Ether and subether 
seethed and boiled invisibly un- 
der the frightful violence of the 
forces there unleashed. The men 
in the control room lay still; all 
life rived away. Now death 
spread throughout the confines 
of the vast spaceship. 

Indomitably, relentlessly, the 
Gray Lensman held his offense 
upon that unimaginably high 
level ; his Lens flooding the room 
with intensely coruscant poly- 
chromatic light. He did not 
know, then or ever, how he did 
it. It seemed as though his 
Lens, of its own volition in this 
time of ultimate need, reached 
out into unguessable continua 
and drew there, from an added, 
an extra something. But, how- 
ever it was done, Kinnison and 
his Lens managed to hold; and 
under the appalling, the never- 
ceasing concentration of force 



the monster’s defenses began 
gradually to weaken and to go 
down. 

Then sketchily, patchily, there 
was revealed to Kinnison’s sight 
and sense of perception a ... a 
. . . a BRAIN! 

There was a body, of sorts, of 
course — a peculiarly neckless 
body designed solely to support 
that gigantic, thin-skulled head. 
There were certain appendages 
or limbs, and suchlike appur- 
tenances and incidentalia to 
nourishment, locomotion, and 
the like; but to all intents and 
purposes the thing was simply 
and solely a brain, 

Kinnison knew starkly that it 
was an Arisian — it looked 
enough like old Mentor to be his 
twin brother. He would have 
been stunned, except for the fact 
that he was far too intent upon 
victory to let any circumstance, 
however distracting, affect his 
purpose. His concentration upon 
the task in hand was so complete 
that nothing — literally nothing 
whatever — could sway him from 
it. 

The monster’s well of illu- 
sion went down completely and 
then, step by short, hard, jerky 
step, Kinnison advanced. Close 
enough, he selected certain 
areas upon the sides of that 
enormous head and with big, 
hard, open hands he went vi- 
ciously to work. Right, left, 
right, left, he slapped those 
bulging temples brutally, rock- 
ing monstrous head and repul- 
sive body from side to side, pen- 
dulumlike, with every stunning 
blow. 

His fist would have smashed 
that thin skull, would perhaps 
have buried itself deep within 
the soft tissues of that tremen- 
dous brain; and Kinnison did 
not want to kill his inexplicable 
opponent — yet. He had to find 
out first what this was all about. 

He knew that he was due to 
black out as soon as he let go, 
and he intended to addle the 
thing’s senses so thoroughly that 
he would be completely out of 



SECOND STAGE LENSMEN 



111 



action ,for hours — long enough 
to give the Lensman plenty of 
time in which to recover his 
strength. 

He did so. 

Kinnison did not quite faint. 
He did, however, have to lie 
down flat upon the floor ; as limp, 
almost, as the dead men so 
thickly strewn about. 

And thus, while the two im- 
mense Grand Fleets met in bat- 
tle, Boskonia’s flagship hung in- 
ert and silent in space afar ; 
manned by fifteen hundred 
corpses, one unconscious Brain, 
and one utterly exhausted Gray 
Lensman. 

XXL 

Boskonia’s Grand Fleet was, 
as has been said, enormous. It 
was not as large as the Patrol in 
total number of ships, since no 
ordinary brain nor any possible 
combination of such brains could 
have co-ordinated and directed 
the activities of so vast a num- 
ber of units. Its center was, 
however, heavier ; composed of a 
number and a tonnage of super- 
maulers which made it self-evi- 
dently irresistible. 

In his training of his Grand 
Fleet operations staff, Kinnison 
had not overlooked a single bet, 
had not made a single move 
which by its falsity might have 
excited Premier Fossten’s all- 
too-ready suspicions. They had 
handled Grand Fleet as a whole 
in vast, slow maneuvers ; plainly 
the only kind possible to so tre- 
mendous a force. Kinnison and 
his officers had in turn harshly 
and thoroughly instructed the 
subfleet commanders in the vari- 
ous arts and maneuvers of con- 
quering units equal to or smaller 
than their own. 

That was all ; and to the Bos- 
konians, even to Fossten, that 
had been enough. That was ob- 
viously all that was possible. 
Not one of them realized that 
Tyrant Gannel very carefully 
avoided any suggestion that 
there might be any intermediate 
tactics, such as that of three or 



four hundred subfleets, too 
widely spread in space and too 
numerous to be handled by any 
ordinary mind or apparatus to 
inglobe and to wipe out simul- 
taneously perhaps fifty subfleets 
whose commanders were not 
even in communication with 
each other. This technique was 
as yet the exclusive property of 
the Patrol and the Z9M9Z. 

And in that exact operation, a 
closed book to the zwilniks, lay 
— supposedly and tactically — the 
Patrol’s overwhelming advan- 
tage, For Haynes, through his 
four highly specialized Rigel- 
lian Lensmen and thence through 
the two hundred Rigellian opera- 
tor-computers, could perform 
maneuvers upon any intermedi- 
ate scale he pleased. He could 
handle his whole vast Grand 
Fleet and its every component 
part — he supposed — as effec- 
tively, as rapidly, and almost as 
easily as a skilled chess player 
handles his pieces and his pawns. 
Neither Kinnison nor Haynes 
can be blamed, however, for the 
fact that their suppositions were 
somewhat in error; it would 
have taken an Arisian to deduce 
that this battle was not to be 
fought exactly as they had 
planned it. 

Haynes had another enormous 
advantage in knowing the exact 
number, rating, disposition, 
course, and velocity of every 
main unit of the aggregation to 
which he was opposed. And 
third, he had the sunbeam, con- 
cerning which the enemy knew 
nothing at all and which was 
now in good working order. 

It is needless to say that the 
sunbeam generators were already 
set to hurl that shaft of irre- 
sistible destruction along the 
precisely correct line, or that 
Haynes’ Grand Fleet formation 
had been made with that par- 
ticular weapon in mind. It was 
not an orthodox formation; in 
any ordinary space battle it 
would have been sheerly suici- 
dal. But the port admiral, know- 
ing for the first time in his ca- 
reer every pertinent fact con- 



cerning his foe, knew exactly 
what he was doing. 

His fleet, instead of driving 
ahead to meet the enemy, re- 
mained inert and practically mo- 
tionless well within the limits of 
Klovia’s solar system. His 
heavy stuff, instead of being 
massed at the center, was ar- 
ranged in a vast ring. There 
was no center except for a con- 
cealing screen of heavy cruisers. 

When the far-flung screens of 
scout cruisers came into engage- 
ment, then, the Patrol scouts 
near the central line did not 
fight, but sped lightly aside. So 
did the light and heavy cruisers 
and the battleships. The whole 
vast center of the Boskonians 
drove onward, unopposed, into — 
nothing. 

Nevertheless they kept on 
driving. They could, without 
orders, do nothing else, and no 
orders were forthcoming from 
the flagship. Commanders tried 
to get in touch with Grand Fleet 
operations, but could not; and. 
in failing, kept on under their 
original instructions. They had, 
they could have, no suspicion 
that any minion of the Patrol 
was back of what had happened 
to their admirals. The flagship 
had been in the safest possible 
position and no attack had as yet 
been made. They probably won- 
dered futilely as to what kind 
of a mechanical breakdown could 
have immobilized and completely 
silenced their High Command, 
but that was — strictly — none of 
their business. They had had 
orders, very definite orders, that 
no matter what happened they 
were to go on to Klovia and to 
destroy it. Thus, however won- 
dering, they kept on. They were 
on the line. They would hold 
to it. They would blast out of 
existence anything and every- 
thing which might attempt to 
bar their way. They would reach 
Klovia and they would reduce 
it to its component atoms. 

Unresisted, then, the Bos- 
konian center bored ahead into 
nothing, until Haynes, through 




112 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



his Rigellians, perceived that it 
had come far enough. Then Klo- 
via’s brilliantly shining sun dark- 
ened almost to the point of go- 
ing out entirely. Along the line 
of centers, through the space so 
peculiarly empty of Patrol ships, 
there came into being the sun- 
beam — a bar of quasi-solid light- 
ning into which there had been 
compressed all the energy of 
well over four million tons per 
second of disintegrating matter. 

Scouts and cruisers caught in 
that ravening beam flashed 
briefly, like sparks flying from a 
forge, and vanished. Battleships 
and superdreadnoughts the same. 
Even the solid war head of for- 
tresses and maulers was utterly 
helpless. No screen has ever 
been designed capable of han- 
dling that hellish load; no pos- 
sible or conceivable substance 
can withstand, save momentarily, 
the ardor of a sunbeam. For the 
energy liberated by the total an- 
nihilation of four million tons 
per second of matter is in fact 
as irresistible as it is incompre- 
hensible. 

The armed and armored plan- 
ets did not disappear. They con- 
tained too much sheer mass for 
even that inconceivably power- 
ful beam to volatilize in any 
small number of seconds. Their 
surfaces, however, melted and 
boiled. The controlling and 
powering mechanisms fused into 
useless pools of molten metal. 
Inert, then, inactive and power- 
less, they no longer constituted 
threats to Klovia’s well-being. 

The negaspheres also were 
rendered ineffective by the beam. 
Their antimasses were not de- 
creased of course — in fact, they 
were probably increased a trifle 
by the fervor of the treatment — 
but, with the controlling super- 
structures volatilized away, they 
became more of menace to the 
Boskonian forces than to those 
of Civilization. Indeed, several 
of the terrible things were 
drawn into contact with ruined 
planets. Then negasphere and 
planet consumed each other, 
flooding all nearby space with 



intensely hard and horribly le- 
thal radiation. 

The beam winked out, Klo- 
via’s sun flashed on. The sun- 
beam was — and is — clumsy, un- 
wieldy, quite definitely not rap- 
idly maneuverable. But it had 
done its work; now the compo- 
nent parts of Civilization’s 
Grand Fleet started in to do 
theirs. 

Since the Battle of Klovia — it 
was and still is called that, as 
though it were the only battle 
which that warlike planet has 
ever seen — has been fought over 
in the classrooms of practically 
every civilized planet of two 
galaxies, it would be redundant 
to discuss it in detail here. 

It was, of course, unique. No 
other battle like it has ever been 
fought, either before or since — 
and let us hope that no other 
such ever will be. It is studied 
by strategists, who have so far 
offered many thousands of 
widely variant profundities as 
to what Port Admiral Haynes 
should have done. Its profound 
emotional appeal, however, lies 
only and sheerly in its unortho- 
doxy. For in the technically 
proper space battle there is no 
hand-to-hand fighting, no purely 
personal heroism, no individual 
deeds of valor. It is a thing of 
logic and mathematics and of 
science, the massing of superior 
fire power against a well-chosen 
succession of weaker opponents. 
When the screens of a spaceship 
go down that ship is done, her 
personnel only memories. 

But here how different ! With 
the supposed breakdown of the 
lines of communication to the 
flagship, the subfleets carried on 
in formation. With the destruc- 
tion of the entire center, how- 
ever, all semblance of organiza- 
tion or of co-operation was lost. 
Every staff officer knew that no 
more orders would emanate from 
the flagship. Each knew chil- 
lingly that there could be nei- 
ther escape nor succor. The 
captain of each vessel, thor- 
oughly convinced that he knew 



vastly more than did his fleet 
commander, proceeded to run 
the war to suit himself. The 
outcome was fantastic, so ut- 
terly bizarre that the Z9M9Z and 
her trained co-ordinating officers 
were useless. Science and tac- 
tics and the million lines of com- 
munication could do nothing 
against a foe who insisted upon 
making it a ship-to-ship, yes, 
man-to-man affair! 

The result was the most gigan- 
tic dog fight in the annals of 
military science. Ships — Civili- 
zation’s perhaps as eagerly as 
Boskonia’s — cut off their pro- 
jectors, cut off their screens, the 
better to ram, to board, to come 
to grips personally with the 
enemy. Scout to scout, cruiser 
to cruiser, battleship to battle- 
ship, the insane contagion 
spread. Haynes and his staff 
men swore fulminantly, the Ri- 
gellians hurled out orders, but 
those orders simply could not be 
obeyed. The dog fight spread 
until it filled a good sixth of 
Klovia’s entire solar system. 

Board and storm! Armor — 
DeLameters — axes! The mad 

blood lust of hand-to-hand com- 
bat, the insensately horrible sav- 
agery of our pirate forebears, 
multiplied by millions and 
spread out to fill a million mil- 
lion cubic miles of space! 

Haynes and his fellows wept 
unashamed as they stood by 
helpless, unable to avoid or to 
prevent the slaughter of so many 
splendid men, the gutting of so 
many magnificent ships. It was 
ghastly — it was appalling — it 
was WAR! 

And far from this scene of tur- 
moil and of butchery lay Bos- 
konia’s great flagship, and in her 
control room Kinnison began to 
recover his strength. He sat up 
groggily. He gave his throbbing 
head a couple of tentative 
shakes. Nothing rattled. Good 
— he was QX, he guessed, even if 
he did feel as limp as nine wet 
dish rags. Even his Lens felt 
weak; its usually refulgent radi- 
ance was sluggish, wan, and dim. 




SECOND STAGE LENSMEN 



113 



This had taken plenty out of 
them, he reflected soberly: but 
he was mighty lucky to be alive. 
But he’d better get his batteries 
charged. He couldn’t drive a 
thought across the room, the 
shape he was in now, and he 
knew of only one brain in the 
Universe capable of straighten- 
ing out this mess. 

After assuring himself that 
the highly inimical brain would 
not be able to function normally 
for a long time to come, the 
Lensman made his way to the 
galley. He could walk without 
staggering already — fine! There 
he fried himself a big, t^ick, rare 
steak — ^his never-failing remedy 
for all the ills to which flesh is 
heir — ^and brewed a pot of the 
coffeelike beverage affected by 
Thralians; making it viciously, 
almost corrosively strong. And 
as he ate and drank, his head 
cleared magically. Strength 
flowed back into him in waves. 
His Lens flamed into its normal 
splendor. He stretched prodi- 
giously; inhaled gratefully a few 
deep breaths. He was QX. 

Back in the control room, after 
again checking up on the still 
quiescent brain — he wouldn’t 
trust this Fossten as far as he 
could spit — he hurled a thought 
to far-distant Arisia and to Men- 
tor, its ancient sage, 

“What’s an Arisian doing in 
this Second Galaxy, working 
against the Patrol? Just what 
is somebody trying to pull off?” 
he demanded heatedly, and in a 
second of flashing thought re- 
ported what had happened, 
“Truly, Kinnison of Tellus, 
my mind is far from capable,” 
the deeply resonant, slow si- 
mulacrum of a voice resounded 
within the Lensman’s brain. The 
Arisian never hurried; nothing 
whatever, apparently, not even 
such a cataclysmic upheaval as 
this, could fluster or excite him. 
“It does not seem to be in accord 
with the visualization of the 
Cosmic All which I hold at the 
moment that any one of my fel- 
lows is in fact either in the Sec- 
ond Galaxy or acting antagonis- 



tically to the Galactic Patrol. It 
is, however, a truism that hy- 
potheses, theories, and visualiza- 
tions must fit themselves to 
known or observed facts, and 
even your immature mind is emi- 
nently able to report truly upon 
actualities. But before I at- 
tempt to revise my Cosmos to 
conform to this admittedly pe- 
culiar circumstance, we must be 
very sure indeed of our facts. 
Are you certain, youth, that the 
being whom you have beaten into 
unconsciousness is actually an 
Arisian?” 

“Certainly I’m certain!” Kin- 
nison snapped. “Why, he’s 
enough like you to have been 
hatched out of half of the same 
egg. Take a look !” — and he knew 
that the Arisian was studying 
every external and internal de- 
tail, part, and organ of the erst- 
while prime minister of Thrale. 

“Ah, it would appear to be an 
Arisian, at that, youth,” Mentor 
finally agreed. “I do not know 
him, however, and I have been 
quite confident that I am ac- 
quainted with each member of 
my race. He is old, as you said 
— as old, perhaps, as I am. This 
will require some little thought 
— allow me therefore, please, a 
moment of contemplation.” The 
Arisian fell silent, presently to 
resume : 

“I have it now. Many millions 
of your years ago — so long ago 
that it was with some little diffi- 
culty that I recalled it to mind— > 
when I was scarcely more than 
an infant, a youth but little older 
than myself disappeared from 
Arisia. It was determined then 
that he was aberrant — insane — 
and since only an unusually ca- 
pable mind can predict truly the 
illogical workings of a diseased 
and disordered mind for even 
one year in advance, it is not 
surprising that in my visualiza- 
tion that unbalanced youth per- 
ished long ago. Nor is it sur- 
prising that I do not recognize 
him in the creature before you, 
for at the time of vanishment no 
permanent pattern had as yet 
been formed.” 



“Well, aren’t you surprised 
that I could get the best of 
him?” Kinnison asked naively. 
He had really expected that 
Mentor would compliment him 
upon his prowess, he figured that 
he had earned a few pats on the 
back; but here the old fellow 
was mooning about his own mind 
and his own philosophy, and act- 
ing as though knocking off an 
Arisian were something to be 
taken in stride. And it wasn’t, 
by half ! 

“No,” came the flatly definite 
reply. “You have a force of 
will, a totalizable and concentra- 
ble power, a mental and psycho- 
logical drive that no mind in the 
macrocosmic universe can break. 
I perceived those latent capa- 
bilities when I assembled your 
Lens, and developed them when 
I developed you. It was their 
presence which made it certain 
that you would return here for 
that development; they made 
you what you intrinsically are.” 

“QX, then — skip it. What 
shall I do with him? It’s going 
to be a real job of work, any way 
you figure it, for us to keep him 
alive and harmless until we can 
get him back there to Arisia.” 

“We do not want him here,” 
Mentor replied without emotion. 
“He has no present or future 
place within our society. Nor, 
however I consider the matter, 
can I perceive that he has any 
longer a permissible or condon- 
able place in the all-inclusive 
Scheme of Things. He has 
served his purpose. Destroy 
him, therefore, forthwith, before 
he so much as recovers con- 
sciousness ; lest much and griev- 
ous harm befall you.” 

“I believe you, chief. You 
chirped it then, if anybody ever 
did. Thanks” — and communica- 
tion ceased. 

The Lensman’s ray gun flamed 
briefly and what was mortal of 
Fossten the prime minister be- 
came a smoking, shapeless heap. 

Kinnison noticed then that a 
call light was shining brightly 
upon a communicator panel. 




114 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



This thing must have taken 
longer than he had supposed. 
The battle must be over, other- 
wise all space would still be 
filled with interference through 
which no long-range communica- 
tor beam could have been driven. 
Or^ — could Boskonia have — No, 
that was unthinkable. The Pa- 
trol must have won. This must 
be Haynes, calling him — 

It was. The frightful Battle 
of Klovia was over. While many 
of the Patrol ships had yielded, 
either by choice or by necessity, 
to the Boskonians’ challenge, 
most of them had not. And the 
majority of those who did so 
yield, came out victorious. 

While fighting in any kind of 
recognized formation against 
such myriads of independently 
operating, widely spaced indi- 
vidual ships was, of course, out 
of the question, Haynes and his 
aids had been able to work out 
a technique of sorts. General 
orders were sent out to subfleet 
commanders, who in turn re- 
layed them to the individual 
captains by means of visual 
beams. Single vessels, then, 
locked to equal or inferior craft 
— avoiding carefully anything 



larger than themselves — with 
tractor zones and held grimly on. 
If they could defeat the foe, QX. 
If not, they hung on; until 
shortly one of the Patrol’s maul- 
ers — who had no opposition of 
their own class to face — would 
come lumbering up. And when 
the dreadful primary batteries of 
one of those things cut loose 
that was, very conclusively, that. 

Thus Boskonia’s mighty fleet 
vanished from the skies. 

The all-pervading interference 
was cut off and Port Admiral 
Haynes, brushing aside a com- 
munications officer, sat down at 
his board and punched a call. 
Time after time he punched it. 
Finally he shoved it in and left 
it in; and as he stared, minute 
after minute, into the coldly un- 
responsive plate his face grew 
gray and old. 

With a long, slightly tremu- 
lous sigh he was turning away 
from the plate when suddenly it 
lighted up to show the smiling, 
deeply space-tanned face of the 
one for whom he had just about 
given up hope. 

“Thank God!” The comman- 
der in chief’s exclamation was 
wholly reverent; his strained old 



face lost twenty years in half 
that many seconds. “Thank God 
you are safe. Vou did it, then?” 

“I managed it. Pop, but just 
by the skin of my teeth — I didn’t 
have half a jet to spare. It was 
Old Man Boskone himself, in 
person. And you?” 

“Clean-up — one hundred point 
oh, oh, oh, oh percent.” 

“Fine business!” Kinnison ex- 
ulted. “Everything’s on the ex- 
act center of the green, then — 
come on!” 

And Civilization’s Grand Fleet 
went. 

The Z9M9Z flashed up to visi- 
bility, inerted, and with furious 
driving blasts full ablaze, 
matched her intrinsic velocity to 
that of the Boskonian flagship— 
the only Boskonian vessel re- 
maining in that whole vast vol- 
ume of space. Tractors and 
pressors were locked on and bal- 
anced. Flexible — or, more ac- 
curately, not ultimately rigid — 
connecting tubes were pushed 
out and sealed. Hundreds, yes 
— thousands, of men — ^men in 
full Thralian uniform — strode 
through those tubes and into the 
Thralian ship. The Directrix 







SECOND STAGE LENSMEN 



115 



unhooked and a battleship took 
her place. Time after time the 
maneuver was repeated, until it 
seemed as though Kinnison’s 
vessel, huge as she was, could 
not possibly carry the numbers 
of men who marched aboard. 

Those men were all human 
or approximately so — nearly 

enough human, at least, to pass 
as Thralians under a casual in- 
spection. More peculiarly, that 
army contained an astounding 
number of Lensmen. So many 
Lensmen, it is certain, had never 
before been gathered together 
into so small a space. But the 
fact that they were Lensmen was 
not apparent; their Lenses were 
not upon their wrists, but were 
high upon their arms, concealed 
from even the most prying eyes 
within the heavy sleeves of their 
tunics. 

Then the captured flagship, 
her Bergenholms again at work, 
the Z9M9Z, and the battleships 
which had already assumed the 
intrinsic velocity possessed 
originally by the Boskonians, 
spread out widely in space. 
Each surrounded itself with a 
globe of intensely vivid red 
light. Orders as to course and 
power flashed out. The word 
was given and spectacular fire 
flooded space as that vast host of 
ships, guided by those red bea- 
cons and by the ever-watchful 
observers of the Directrix, 
matched in one prodigious and 
beautiful maneuver its intrinsic 
velocity to theirs. 

Finally, all the intrinsics in 
exact agreement. Grand Fleet 
formation was remade. The 
term “remade” is used advisedly, 
since this was not to be a battle 
formation. For Traska Gannel 
had long since sent a message to 
his capital; a terse and truthful 
message which was, neverthe- 
less, utterly misleading. It was : 

“My forces have won, my 
enemy has been wiped out to the 
last man. Prepare for a two- 
world broadcast, to cover both 
Thrale and Onlo, at hour ten to- 
day of my palace time.” 

Tlie formation, then, was not 

AST— 8B 



one of warfare, but of boasting 
triumph. It was the consciously 
proud formation of a Grand 
Fleet which, secure in the 
knowledge that it has blasted 
out of the ether everything 
which can threaten it, returns 
victoriously to its Prime Base 
to receive as its just due the 
plaudits and the acclaim of the 
populace. 

Well in the van — alone in the 
van, in fact, and strutting — was 
the flagship. She, having origi- 
nated upon Thrale and having 
been built specifically for a flag- 
ship, would be recognized at 
sight. Back of her came, in gi- 
gantic co-axial cones, the sub- 
fleets; arranged now not class 
by class of ships, but world by 
world of origin. One mauler, 
perhaps, or two; from four or 
five to a dozen or more battle- 
ships; an appropriate number of 
cruisers and of scouts; all fly- 
ing along together in a tight lit- 
tle group. 

But not all of the Patrol’s ar- 
mada was in that formation. It 
would have been very poor tech- 
nique indeed to have had Bos- 
konia’s Grand Fleet come back 
to home ether forty percent 
larger than it had set out. Be- 
sides, the Directrix simply could 
not be allowed to come within 
detector range of any Boskonian 
lookout. She was utterly unlike 
any other vessel ever to fly: she 
would not, perhaps, be recog- 
nized for what she really was, 
but it would be evident to the 
most casual observer that she was 
not and could not be of Thrale 
or of Boskonia. 

The Z9M9Z, then, hung back 
— far back— escorted and envel- 
oped by the great number of 
warships which could not be 
made to fit into the roll call of 
the Tyrant’s original Grand 
Fleet. 

The subfleet which was origi- 
nally from Thrale could land 
without any trouble; without 
arousing any suspicion. Bos- 
konian and Patrol designs were 
not identical, of course; but the 
requirements of sound engineer- 



ing dictated that externals 
should be essentially the same. 
The individual ships now bore 
the correct identifying symbols 
and insignia. The minor differ- 
ences could not be perceived im- 
til after the vessels had actually 
landed, and that would be — for 
the Thralians— entirely too late. 

Thralian hour ten arrived. 
Kinnison, after a long, minutely 
searching inspection of the en- 
tire room, became again in every 
millimeter Traska Gannel, the 
Tyrant of Thrale. He waved a 
hand. The scanner before him 
glowed : for a full minute he 
stared into it haughtily, to give 
his teeming millions of minions 
ample opportunity to gaze upon 
the inspiring countenance of 
His Supremacy the Feared. 

He knew that the scanner re- 
vealed clearly every detail of the 
control room behind him, but 
everything there was QX. 
There was not even a chance 
that some person would fail to 
recognize a familiar face at any 
post, for not a single face ex- 
cept his own would be visible. 
Not a head back of him would 
turn, not even a rear quarter pro- 
file would show : it would be lese 
majeste of the most intolerable 
for any face, however incon- 
spicuous, to share the limelight 
with that of the Tyrant of 
Thrale while his supremacy was 
addressing his subjects. Se- 
renely and assuredly enough, 
then, Kinnison as Tyrant Gannel 
spoke : 

“My people! As you have al- 
ready been told, my forces have 
won the complete victory which 
my foresight and ray leadership 
made inevitable. This milestone 
of progress is merely a repeti- 
tion upon a grander scale of 
those which I have already ac- 
complished upon a somewhat 
smaller; as extension and a con- 
tinuation of the carefully con- 
sidered procedure by virtue of 
which I shall see to it that My 
Great Plan succeeds. 

“As one item in that scheduled 
procedure I removed the weak- 




116 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



ling Alcon, and in the stead of 
his rule of oppression, short- 
sightedness, corruption, favor- 
itism, and greed, I substituted 
my beneficent regime of fair 
play, of mutual co-operation for 
the good of all. 

“I have now accomplished the 
next major step in my program; 
the complete destruction of the 
armed forces which might be, 
which would be employed to 
hamper and to nullify the de- 
velopment and the fruition of 
My Plan. 

“I shall take the next step im- 
mediately upon my return to my 
palace. There is no need to in- 
form you now as to the details 
of what I have in mind. In 
broad, however, it pleases me to 
inform you that, having crushed 
all opposition, I am now able to 
institute and shall proceed at 
once to institute certain changes 
in policy, in administration, and 
in jurisdiction. I assure you 
that all of these changes will be, 
ultimately for the best good of 
all save the enemies of society. 

“I caution you therefore to co- 
operate fully and willingly with 
my officers who may shortly 
come among you with instruc- 
tions; some of these, perhaps, of 
a nature not hitherto promul- 
gated upon Thrale. Those of 
you who do so co-operate will 
live and will prosper; you who 
do not will die in the slowest, 
most hideous fashions which 
hundreds of generations of 
Thralian torturers have been 
able to devise." 

XXII. 

Up to the present, Kinnison’s 
revolution, his self-advancement 
into the dictatorship, had been 
perfectly normal; in perfect ac- 
cordance with the best tenets of 
Boskonian etiquette. While it 
would be idle to contend that 
any of the others of the High 
Command really approved of it 
— each wanted intensely that 
high place for himself — none of 
them had been strong enough at 
the moment to challenge the 



usurper effectively and all of 
them knew that an ineffective 
challenge would mean certain 
death. Wherefore each perforce 
bided his time. Gannel would 
slip, Gannel would become lax 
or overconfident — and that 

would be the end of Gannel. 

They were, however, loyal in 
their way to Boskonia. They 
were very much in favor of the 
rule of the strong and the ruth- 
less. They believed implicitly 
that might made right. They 
themselves bowed the knee to 
anyone strong enough to com- 
mand such servility from them; 
in turn they enforced brutally 
an even more degrading slavish- 
ness from those over whom they 
held in practice, if not at law, 
the power of life and death. 

Thus Kinnison knew that he 
could handle his cabinet easily 
enough as long as he could make 
them believe that he was a Bos- 
konian. There was, there could 
be, no real unity among them 
under those conditions; each 
would be fighting his fellows as 
well as working to overthrow 
His Supremacy the Tyrant. But 
they all hated the Patrol and all 
that it stood for with a whole- 
hearted fervor which no one ad- 
herent to Civilization can really 
appreciate. Hence at the first 
sign that Gannel might be in 
league with the Patrol they 
would combine forces instantly 
against him; automatically there 
would go into effect a tacit 
agreement to kill him first and 
then, later, to fight it out among 
themselves for the prize of the 
Tyrancy, 

And that combined opposition 
would be a formidable one in- 
deed. Those men were really 
able. They were as clever and 
as shrewd and as smart and as 
subtle as they were hard. They 
were masters of intrigue; they 
simply could not be fooled. And 
if their united word went down 
the line that Traska Gannel was 
in fact a traitor to Boskonia, an 
upheaval would ensue, which 
would throw into the shade the 
bloodiest revolutions of all his- 



tory. Everything would be de- 
stroyed. 

Nor could the Lensman hurl 
the metal of the Patrol against 
Thrale in direct frontal attack. 
Not only was it immensely 
strong, but also there were those 
priceless records, without which 
it might very well be the work 
of generations for the Patrol to 
secure the information which it 
must, for its own security, have. 

No. Kinnison, having started 
near the bottom and worked up, 
must now begin all over again at 
the top and work down; and he 
must be very, very sure that no 
alarm was given until at too late 
a time for the alarmed ones to 
do anything of harm to the Lens- 
man’s cause. He didn’t know 
whether he had jets enough to 
swing the load or not — a lot de- 
pended on whether or not he 
could civilize those twelve dev- 
ils of his — but the scheme that 
the psychologists had worked 
out was a honey and he would 
certainly give it the good old 
college try. 

Thus Grand Fleet slowed 
down, and, with the flagship just 
out of range of the capital’s ter- 
rific offensive weapons, it 
stopped. Half a dozen maulers, 
towing a blackly indetectable, 
imperceptible object, came up 
and stopped. The Tyrant called, 
from the safety of his control 
room, a conference of his cabi- 
net in the council chamber. 

“While I have not been gone 
very long in point of days,’’ he 
addressed them smoothly, via 
plate, “and while I, of course, 
trust each and every one of you, 
there are certain matters which 
must be made clear before I at- 
tempt to land. None of you has, 
by any possible chance, made 
any effort to lay a trap for me, 
or anything of the kind?” There 
may have been a trace of irony 
in the speaker’s voice. 

They assured him, one and all, 
that they had not had the slight- 
est idea of even considering such 
a thing. 

“It is well. None of you have 





SECOND STAGE LENSMEN 



117 



discovered, then, that by chang- 
ing locks and combinations, and 
by destroying or removing cer- 
tain inconspicuous but essential 
mechanisms of an extremely 
complicated nature — and per- 
haps substituting others — I made 
it quite definitely impossible for 
any one or all of you to render 
this planet inertialess. I have 
brought back with me a nega- 
sphere of planetary antimass, 
which no power at your disposal 
can affect. It is here beside me 
in space; please study it atten- 
tively. It should not be neces- 
sary for me to inform you that 
there are countless other planets 
from which I can rule Boskonia 
quite as effectively as from 
Thrale; or that, while I do not 
relish the idea of destroying my 
home planet and everything 
upon it, I would not hesitate to 
do so if it became a matter of 
choice between that action and 
the loss of my life and my posi- 
tion.” 

They believed the statement. 
That was the eminently sensible 
thing to do. Any one of them 
would have done the same ; hence 
they knew that Gannel would do 
exactly what he threatened — if 
he could. And as they studied 
Gannel’s abysmally black ace of 
trumps they knew starkly that 
Gannel could. For they had 
found out, individually, that the 
Tyrant had so effectively sabo- 
taged Thrale’s Bergenholms that 
they could not possibly be made 
operative until after his return. 
Consequently repairs had not 
been started — any such activity, 
they knew, would be a fatal mis- 
take. 

By outguessing and outma- 
neuvering the members of his 
cabinet Gannel had once more 
shown his fitness to rule. They 
accepted that fact with a good 
enough grace ; indeed, they ad- 
mired him all the more for the 
ability thus shown. No one of 
them had given himself away by 
any overt moves; they could 
wait. Gannel would slip yet — 
quite possibly even before he got 
back into his palace. So they 



thought, not knowing that the 
Tyrant could read at will their 
most deeply hidden plans; and, 
so thinking, each one pledged 
anew in unreserved terms his 
fealty and his loyalty. 

“I thank you, gentlemen.” The 
boss did not, and the officers 
were pretty sure that he did not, 
believe a word of their protesta- 
tions. “As loyal cabinet mem- 
bers, I will give you the honor 
of sitting in the front of those 
who welcome me home. You 
men and your guards will oc- 
cupy the front boxes in the 
Royal Stand. With you and 
around you will be the entire 
palace personnel — I want no per- 
son, except the usual guards, in- 
side the buildings or even within 
the grounds when I land. Back 
of these you will have arranged 
the Personal Troops and the 
Royal Guards. The remaining 
stands and all of the usual open 
ground will be for the common 
people — first come, first served. 

“But one word of caution. 
You may wear your side arms, as 
usual. Bear in mind, however, 
that armor is neither usual nor 
a part of your full-dress uni- 
form, and that any armored man 
or men in or near the concourse 
will be blasted by a needle ray 
before I land. Be advised also 
that I myself shall be wearing 
full armor. Furthermore, no 
vessel of the fleet will land un- 
til I, personally, from my private 
sanctum, order them to do so.” 

This situation was another 
poser; but it, too, they had to 
take. There was no way out of 
it, and it was still perfect Bos- 
konian generalship. The wel- 
coming arrangements were there- 
fore made precisely as the Ty- 
rant had directed. 

The flagship settled toward 
ground, her under jets blasting 
unusually viciously because of 
her tremendous load; and as she 
descended Kinnison glanced 
briefly down at the familiar ter- 
rain. There was the immense 
space field, a dock-studded ex- 
panse of burned, scarred, pock- 



marked concrete and steel. Mid- 
way of its extreme northern end, 
that nearest the palace, was the 
berth of the flagship. Dock No. 1. 
An eighth of a mile straight 
north from the dock — the mini- 
mum distance possible because 
of the terrific fury of the under 
jets — ^was the entrance to the 
palace grounds. At the north- 
ern end of the western side of 
the field, a good three-quarters 
of a mile from Dock No. 1 and 
somewhat more than that dis- 
tance from the palace gates, were 
the Stands of Ceremony. That 
made the Lensman completely 
the master of the situation. 

The flagship landed, her madly 
blasting jets died out. A car of 
state rolled grandly up. Air 
locks opened. Kinnison and his 
bodyguards seated themselves in 
the car. Helicopters appeared 
above the stands and above the 
massed crowds thronging the 
western approaches to the field ; 
hovering, flitting slowly and 
watchfully about. 

Then from the flagship there 
emerged an incredible number of 
armed and armored soldiers. 
One small column of these 
marched behind the slowly mov- 
ing car of state, but by far the 
greater number went directly to 
and through the imposing por- 
tals of the palace grounds. The 
people in general, gathered there 
to see a major spectacle, thought 
nothing of these circumstances 
— who were they to wonder at 
what the Tyrant of Thrale might 
choose to do? — ^but to Gannel’s 
Council of Advisers they were 
extremely disquieting departures 
from the norm. There was, how- 
ever, nothing that they could do 
about them, away out there in 
the grandstand; and they knew 
with a stark certainty what those 
helicopters had orders to do in 
case of any uprising or commo- 
tion anywhere in the crowd. 

The car rolled slowly along be- 
fore the fenced-back, wildly 
cheering multitudes, with blar- 
ing bands and the columns of 
armored spacemen marching 
crisply, swingingly behind it. 





118 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



There was nothing to indicate 
that those selected men were not 
Thralians; nothing whatever to 
hint that over a thousand of 
them were in fact Lensmen of 
the Galactic Patrol. And Kinni- 
son, standing stiffly erect in his 
car, acknowledged gravely, with 
upraised right arm, the plaudits 
of his subjects. 

The triumphal bus stopped in 
front of the most outthrust, the 
most ornate stand, and through 
loud-voiced amplifiers the Ty- 
rant invited, as a signal honor, 
the twelve members of his Ad- 
visory Cabinet to ride with him 
in state to the palace. There 
were exactly twelve vacant seats 
in the great coach. The ad- 
visers would have to leave their 
bodyguards and ride alone with 
the Tyrant : even had there been 
room, it was unthinkable that 
any one else’s personal killers 
could ride with the Presence. 
This was no honor, they knew 
chillingly, no matter what the 
mob might think — it looked 
much more like a death sentence. 
But what could they do? They 
glanced at their unarmored 
henchmen ; then at the armor 
and the semiportables of Gan- 
nel’s own heelers; then at the 
ranks of heavily armed and ar- 
mored troopers; and finally at 
the ’copters now clustering 
thickly overhead, with the nar- 
row snouts of needle-ray pro- 
jectors very much in evidence. 

They accepted. 

It was in no quiet frame of 
mind, then, that they rode into 
the pretentious grounds of the 
palace. They felt no better 
when, as they entered the coun- 
cil chamber, they were seized 
and disarmed without a word 
having been spoken. And the 
world fairly dropped out from 
beneath them when Tyrant Gan- 
nel emerged from his armor with 
a Lens glowing upon his wrist. 

“Yes, I am a Lensman,” he 
gravely informed the stupefied 
but unshrinking Boskonians. 
“That is why I know that all 
twelve of you tried while I was 



gone to cut me down, in spite of 
all that I told you and all that 
you have seen me do. If it were 
still necessary for me to pose as 
Traska Gannel, I would have to 
kill you here and now for your 
treachery. That phase is, how- 
ever, past. 

“I am one of the Lensmen 
whose collective activities you 
have ascribed to ‘the’ Lensman 
or to Star A Star. All those 
others who came with me into 
the palace are Lensmen. All 
those outside are either Lens- 
men or tried and seasoned vet- 
erans of the Galactic Patrol. 
The Fleet surrounding this 
world is the Grand Fleet of that 
Patrol. The Boskonian force 
was destroyed in toto — every 
man and every ship except your 
flagship — ^before it reached Klo- 
via. In short, the power of Bos- 
konia is broken forever; Civili- 
zation is to rule henceforth 
throughout both galaxies. 

“You are the twelve strongest, 
the twelve ablest men of the 
planet, perhaps of your whole 
dark culture. Will you help us 
to rule according to the princi- 
ples of Civilization that which 
has been the Boskonian Empire, 
or will you die?” 

The Thralians stiffened them- 
selves rigidly against the ex- 
pected blasts of death, but only 
one spoke. “We are fortunate at 
least, Lensman, in that you do 
not torture,” he said coldly, his 
lips twisted in to a hard, defiant 
sneer. 

“Good!” and the Lensman 
actually smiled. “I expected no 
less. With that solid bottom, all 
that is necessary is to wipe away 
a few of your misconceptions 
and misunderstandings, correct 
your viewpoints, and — ” 

“Do you think for a second 
that your therapists can fit as 
into the pattern of your Civili- 
zation?” the Boskonian spokes- 
man demanded bitingly. 

“I don’t have to think, Lanion 
— I know,” Kinnison assured 
him. “Take them away, fellows, 
and lock them up — you know 



where. Everything will go 
ahead as scheduled.” 

And it did. 

And while the mighty vessels 
of war landed upon the space- 
field and while the thronging 
Lensmen took over post after 
post in an ever-widening down- 
ward course, Kinnison led Wor- 
sel and Tregonsee to the cell in 
which the outspoken Thralian 
chieftain was confined. 

“I do not know whether I can 
prevent you from operating upon 
me or not,” Lanion of Thrale 
spoke harshly, “but I will cer- 
tainly try. I have seen the piti- 
ful, distorted wrecks left after 
such operations and I do not like 
them. Furthermore, I do not 
believe that any possible science 
can eradicate from my subcon- 
scious the fixed determination to 
kill myself the instant you re- 
lease me. Therefore you had 
better kill me now, Lensman, 
and save your time and trouble.” 

“You are right, and wrong,” 
Kinnison replied quietly. “It 
may very well be impossible to 
remove such a fixation.” He 
knew that he could remove any 
such, but Lanion must not know 
it. Civilization needed those 
twelve hard, shrewd minds and 
he had no intention of allowing 
an inferiority complex to weaken 
their powers. “We do not, how- 
ever, intend to operate, but only 
and simply to educate. You will 
not be unconscious at any time. 
You will be in full control of 
your own mind and you will 
know beyond peradventure that 
you are so in control. We shall 
engrave, in parallel with your 
own present knowledges of the 
culture of Boskonia, the equiva- 
lent or corresponding knowl- 
edges of Civilization.” 

They did so. It was not a 
short undertaking, nor an easy 
one; but it was thorough and it 
was finally done. Then Kinni- 
son spoke, 

“You now have completely de- 
tailed knowledge both of Bos- 
konia and of Civilization, a com- 
bination possessed by but few 






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Mandolin 

Saxophone 

Trumpet 

Trombone 


Banjo 

Ukulele 

Cornet 


Plano Accordion 
Plain Accordion 
Hawaiian Guitar 
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120 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



intelligences indeed. You know 
that we did not alter, did not 
even touch, any track of your 
original mind. Being fully en 
rapport with us, you know that 
we gave you as unprejudiced a 
concept of Civilization as we 
possibly could. Also, you have 
assimilated completely the new 
knowledge.” 

“That is all true,” Lanion con- 
ceded. “Remarkable, but true. 
I was, and remained throughout, 
myself; I checked constantly to 
be sure of that. I can still kill 
myself at any moment I choose.” 

“Right.” Kinnison did not 
smile, even mentally, at the un- 
conscious alteration of intent. 
“The whole proposition can now 
be boiled down into one clear-cut 
question, to which you can for- 
mulate an equally clear-cut re- 
ply. Would you, Lanion, per- 
sonally, prefer to keep on as you 
have been, working for personal 
power, or would you rather team 
up with others to work for the 
good of all?” 

The Thralian thought for mo- 
ments, and as he pondered an ex- 
pression of consternation spread 
over his hard hewn face. “You 
mean actually — personally — 

apart from all consideration of 
your so-called altruism and your 
other sissyish weaknesses?” he 
demanded resistantly. 

“Exactly,” Kinnison assured 
him. “Which would you rather 
do? Which would you, person- 
ally, get the most good — the 
most fun— out of?” 

The bitter conflict was plainly 
visible in Lanion’s bronzed face ; 
so was the direction in which it 
was going. 

“Well . . . I’ll . , . be . . . 
damned! You win, Lensman!” 
and the ex-Boskonian big shot 
held out his hand. Those were 
not his words, of course; but as 
nearly as Tellurian English can 
come to it, that is the exact sense 
of his final decision. And the 
same, or approximately the same, 
was the decision of each of his 
eleven fellows, each in his turn. 

Thus it was, then, that Civili- 



zation won over the twelve re- 
cruits who were so potently in- 
strumental in the bloodless con- 
quest of Thrale, and who were 
later to be of such signal service 
throughout the Second Galaxy, 
For they knew Boskonia with a 
sure knowledge, from top to 
bottom and from side to side, in 
every aspect and ramification ; 
they knew precisely where and 
when and how to work to secure 
the desired ends. And they 
worked — how they worked ! — but 
space is lacking to go into any 
of their labors here. 

Specialists gathered, of a hun- 
dred different sorts; and when, 
after peace and security had 
been gained, they began to at- 
tack the stupendous files of the 
Hall of Records, Kinnison finally 
yielded to Haynes’ insistences 
and moved out to the Z9M9Z. 

“It’s about time, young fel- 
low!” the admiral snapped. “I’ve 
gnawed my fingernails off just 
about to the elbow and I still 
haven’t ^gured out how to crack 
Onlo, Have you got any ideas?” 

“Thrale first,” Kinnison sug- 
gested. “Everything QX here, 
you sure?” 

“Absolutely,” Haynes grunted. 
“As strongly held as Tellus or 
Klovia. Primaries, helices, su- 
pertractors, Bergenholms, sun- 
beam — everything. They don’t 
need us here any longer, any 
more than a hen needs teeth. 
Grand Fleet is all set to go, but 
we haven’t been able to work out 
a feasible plan of campaign. 
The best way would be not to 
use the Fleet at all, but a sun- 
beam — ^but we can’t move the 
Sun and Thorndyke has not as 
yet succeeded in making it hold 
together that far. I don’t sup- 
pose that we could use a nega- 
sphere?” 

“I don’t see how,” Kinnison 
pondered. “Ever since we used 
it first they’ve been ready for it. 
I’d be inclined to wait and see 
what Nadreck works out. He’s 
a wise old owl, that bird — ^what 
does he tell you?” 

“Nothing. Nothing, flat.” 
Haynes’ smile was grimly 



amused. “The fact that he is 
still ‘investigating’ — whatever 

that means — is all that he will 
tell me. Why don’t you try him 
— you know him better than I 
do or ever will.” 

“It wouldn’t do any harm,” 
Kinnison agreed. “Nor good, 
either, probably. Funny egg, 
Nadreck. I’d tie fourteen of his 
arms into lover’s knots if it’d 
make him give, but it wouldn’t — 
he’s a plenty tough number.” 
Nevertheless he sent out a call, 
which was acknowldged in- 
stantly. 

“Ah, Kinnison, greetings. I 
am even now on my way to 
Thrale and the Directrix to re- 
port upon the investigation.” 

“You are? Fine!” Kinnison 
exclaimed. “How did you come 
out?” 

“I did not — exactly — fail, but 
the work was very incompletely 
and very poorly done,” Nadreck 
submitted, the while the Tellu- 
rian’s mind felt very strongly 
the Palainian equivalent of a 
painful blush of shame. “My 
report of the affair will be put 
and will forever remain under 
Lensman’s Seal.” 

“But what did you do?” both 
Tellurians demanded as one. 

“I scarcely know how to con- 
fess to such blundering,” and 
Nadreck actually squirmed. 
“Will you not permit me to 
leave my shame to the spool of 
record?” 

They would not, they in- 
formed him definitely. 

“If you must have it, then, I 
yield. The plan was to make all 
of the armed forces upon Onlo 
destroy themselves. In theory it 
was sound and simple, but my 
execution was pitifully imper- 
fect. My work was so poorly 
done that the commanding offi- 
cer in each one of three of the 
domes remained alive, making it 
necessary for me to slay them 
personally, by the use of crude 
force. I regret exceedingly the 
lack of finish of this undertak- 
ing, and I apologize profoundly 
for it. I trust that you will not 
allow this information to become 





121 



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122 



ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



a matter of public knowledge” 
— and th^ apologetic, mentally 
sweating, really humiliated Pa- 
lainian broke the connection. 

Haynes and Kinnison stared at 
each other, for moments com- 
pletely at a loss for words. The 
admiral first broke the silence. 

“Hell’s — jingling — bells !” he 
wrenched out, finally, and waved 
a hand at the points of light 
crowding so thickly his tactical 
tank. “A thing that the whole 
Grand Fleet couldn’t do, and he 
does it alone, and then he apolo- 
gizes for it as though he ought 
to be stood up in a corner or sent 
to bed without any supper!” 

“Uh-huh, that’s the way he is,” 
Kinnison breathed, in awe. 
“What a brain! — what a man!” 

Nadreck’s black speedster ar- 
rived and a three-way confer- 
ence was held. Both Haynes and 
Kinnison pressed him for the de- 
tails of his really stupendous 
achievement, but he refused 
positively even to mention any 
phase of it. 

“The matter is closed — fin- 
ished,” he declared, in a mood of 
anger and self-reproach which 
neither of the Tellurians had 
ever supposed that the gently 
scientific monster could assume. 
“I practically failed. It is the 
poorest piece of work of which I 
have been guilty since cubhood, 
and I desire and I insist that it 
shall not be mentioned again. If 
you wish to lay plans for the fu- 
ture, I will be very glad indeed 
to place at your disposal my 
small ability — which has now 
been shown to be even smaller 
than I had supposed — but if you 
insist upon discussing my fiasco, 
I shall forthwith go home. I 
will not discuss it. The record 
of it will remain permanently 
under Lensman’s Seal. That is 
my last word.” 

And it was. Neither of the 
two Tellurians mentioned the 
subject, of course, either then or 
ever, but many other persons — 
including your historian — have 
done so, with no trace whatever 
of success. It is a shame, it is 



positively outrageous, that no 
details are available of the actual 
fall of Onlo. No human mind 
can understand why Nadreck 
will not release his Seal, but the 
bitter fact of his refusal to do so 
has been made all too plain. 

Thus, in all probability, it 
never will become publicly 
known how those monstrous On- 
lonians destroyed each other, 
nor how Nadreck penetrated the 
defensive screens of Onlo’s em- 
battled domes, nor in what fash- 
ion he warred upon the three 
surviving commanders. These 
matters, and many others of per- 
haps equal interest and value, 
must have been of such an epic 
nature that it is a cosmic crime 
that they cannot be recorded 
here; that this, one of the most 
important incidents of the cam- 
paign, must be mentioned merely 
and baldly as having happened. 
But, unless Nadreck relents — 
and he apparently never does— 
that is the starkly tragic fact. 

Other Lensmen were called in 
then, and admirals and generals 
and other personages. It was 
decided to man the fortifications 
of Onlo immediately, from the 
several fleets of frigid-blooded 
poison breathers which made up 
a certain percentage of Civiliza- 
tion’s forces. This decision was 
influenced markedly by Nadreck, 
who said in part: 

“Onlo is a beautiful planet. 
Its atmosphere is perfect, its 
climate is ideal; not only for us 
of Palain VII, but also for the 
inhabitants of many other plan- 
ets, such as — ” and he mentioned 
some twenty names. “While I 
personally am not a fighter, there 
are many who are; and while 
those of a more warlike disposi- 
tion man Onlo’s defenses and 
weapons, my fellow researchers 
and I might very well be carry- 
ing on with the same type of 
work, which you fire-blooded 
oxygen breathers are doing upon 
Thrale and similar planets.” 

That was such an eminently 
sensible suggestion that it was 
adopted at once. The confer- 



ence broke up. The selected sub- 
fleets sailed. Kinnison sought 
out the commander in chief. 

“Well, sir, that’s it — I hope. 
What do you think? Am I, or 
am I not, due for a spot of free 
time?” The Gray Lensman’s 
face was drawn and grim. 

“I wish I knew, son — but I 
don’t.” Eyes and voice were 
deeply troubled. “You ought to 
be ... I hope you are . . . but 
you’re the only judge of that, 
you know.” 

“Uh-huh . . . that is, I know 
how to find out . . . but I’m 
afraid to — afraid he’ll say no. 
However, I’m going to see Chris 
first — talk it over with her. How 
about having a gig drop me 
down to the hospital?” 

For he did not have to travel 
very far to find his fiancee. 
From the time of leaving Ly- 
rane until the taking over of 
Thrale she had as a matter of 
course been chief nurse of the 
hospital ship Pasteur, and with 
the civilizing of that planet she 
had as , automatically become 
chief nurse of the Patrol’s Base 
Hospital there. 

“Certainly, Kim — anything 

you want, whenever you please.” 

“Thanks, chief. Now that this 
fracas is finally over — if it is — I 
suppose that you’ll have to take 
over as president of the Galactic 
Council?” 

“I suppose so — after we clean 
Lyrane VIII, that you’ve been 
holding me away from so long — 
but I don’t relish the thought. 
And you’ll be Co-ordinator Kin- 
nison.” 

“Uh-huh”— gloomily. “By 

Klono, I hate to put my Grays 
away! I’m not going to do it, 
either, until after we’re married 
and really settled down onto the 
job.” 

“Of course not. You’ll be 
wearing them for some time yet, 
I’m thinking.” Haynes’ tone was 
distinctly envious. “Getting 
your job settled down into a 
routine one will take a long, 
long time. It will take years 
even to find out what it is really 
going to be.” 





SECOND STAGE LENSMEN 



123 



“That’s so, too,” Kinnison 
brightened visibly. “Well, clear 
ether. President Haynes!” and 
he turned away, whistling un- 
melodiously — in fact, somewhat 
raucously — through his teeth. 

XXIII. 

At Base Hospital it was mid- 
night. The two largest of 
Thrale’s four major moons were 
visible, close together in the 
zenith, almost at the full; shin- 
ing brilliantly from a cloudless, 
star-besprinkled sky upon the 
magnificent grounds. 

Fountains splashed and tin- 
kled musically. Masses of flow- 
ering shrubs, bordering mean- 
dering walks, flooded the still air 
with a perfume almost cloying 
in its intensity. No one who has 
once smelled the fragrance of 
Thralian thorn flower at mid- 
night will ever forget it — it is 
as though the poignant sweet- 
ness of the mountain syringa has 
been blended harmoniously with 
the heavy, entrancing scent of 
the jasmine and the appealing 
pungency of the lily of the val- 
ley. Statues of gleaming white 
stone and of glinting metal were 
spaced infrequently over acres 
and acres of springy, 
close-clipped turf. Trees, 
not overhigh but massive 
of bole and of tremen- 
dous spread and thick- 
ness of foliage, cast 
shadows of impenetrable 
black. 

“QX, Chris?” Kinni- 
son Lensed the thought 
as he arrived on the 
grounds. She had known 
that he was coming. 

“Kinda late, I know, but 
I wanted to see you, and 
I know that you don’t 
have to punch the clock.” 

“Surely, Kim” — and her 
low, infectious chuckle 
welled out. “What’s the 
use of being a Red Lens- 
man, else? This is just 
right — you couldn’t make 
. it any sooner, and tomor- 
row would have been too 



late — ^rnuch too late.” 

They met at the door and with 
each an arm around the other 
strolled wordless down a walk. 
Across the resilient sward they 
made their way and to a bench 
beneath one of the spreading 
trees. 

Kinnison swept her into botlf 
arms, hers went eagerly around 
his neck. How long, how unut- 
terably long it had been since 
they had stood thus, nurse’s 
white crushed against Lensman’s 
Gray! 

“Chris . . . my Chris. How I 
love you!” he whispered, tense. 
“And now that I’ve got you 
again, by Klono’s crimson claws. 
I’ll never let you go!” 

“Oh . . . oh, Kim, dear. I’ve 
missed you so terribly, Kim. If 
they separate us again, it will 
simply break my heart,” she 
breathed, her low, rich voice 
pure music. Then womanlike, 
she faced the facts and made the 
man face them, too. “Let’s sit 
dovm, Kim, and have this out. 
You know as well as I do that 
we can’t go on if . . . if we can’t 
, . . that’s all.” 

They sat down upon the 
bench, arms still around each 
other. They had no need, these 



Lensmen, of sight. No need of 
language, either, although upon 
this page their thoughts must be 
put into words. They did, how- 
ever, have need — a profound 
need — of physical contact. 

“I do not,” the man declared 
vigorously. “We’ve got a right 
to some happiness, Chris, you 
and I. They can’t keep us apart 
forever, sweetheart — ^we’re going 
straight through with it this 
time.” 

“Uh-uh, Kim,” she denied 
gently, shaking her spectacular 
head. “What would have hap- 
pened if we’d have gone ahead 
before, leaving these horrible 
Thralians free to ruin Civiliza- 
tion?” 

“But Mentor stopped us then,” 
Kinnison argued. Deep down, 
he knew that if the Arisian 
called he would have to answer, 
but he argued nevertheless. “If 
the job wasn’t done, he would 
have stopped us before we got 
this far — I think.” 

“You hope, you mean,” the 
girl contradicted. “What makes 
you think — if you really do — 
that he might not wait until the 
ceremony has actually begun?” 

“Not a thing in the universe. 
He might, at that,” Kinnison 







124 



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confessed, bleakly. 

“You’ve been afraid to ask 
him, haven’t you?” Clarrissa 
pursued. 

“But the job must be done!” 
Kinnison insisted, avoiding the 
question. “The prime minister 
— that Fossten — must have been 
the top ; you know very well that 
there couldn’t possibly be any- 
thing bigger than an Arisian to 
be back of Boskone. It’s un- 
thinkable ! They’ve got no mili- 
tary organization left — not a 
beam hot enough to light a cig- 
arette or a screen that would 
stop a firecracker. We have all 
their records — everything. Why, 
it’s just a matter of routine now 
for the boys to uproot them com- 
pletely; system by system, planet 
by planet.” 

“Uh-huh.” Chris eyed him 
shrewdly, there in the dark. 
“Cogent. Really pellucid. As 
clear as so much crystal — and 
twice as fragile. If you’re so 
sure, why not call Mentor and 
ask him, right now? You’re not 
afraid of just the calling part, 
like I am; you’re afraid of what 
he will say.” 

“I’m going to marry you be- 
fore I do another lick of work of 
any kind, anywhere,” he insisted 
doggedly. 

“I just love to hear you say 
that, even if I do know that 
you’re just blasting off!” She 
giggled sunnily and snuggled 
deeper into the curve of his arm. 
“I feel that way, too, but both 
of us know very well that if 
Mentor stops us . . . even at the 
altar — ” Her thought slowed, 
became intense, solemn. “We’re 
Lensmen, Kim, you and I. We 
both realize to the full just what 
that means. We’ll have to mus- 
ter jets enough, some way or 
other, to swing the load. Let’s 
call him now, Kim, together, I 
just simply can’t stand this not 
knowing ... I can’t, Kim ... I 
can’t!” Tears come hard and 
seldom to such a woman as Clar- 
rissa MacDougall ; but they came 
then — and they hurt. 

“QX, ace.” Kinnison patted 



her back and her gorgeous head. 
“Let’s go — but I tell you now 
that if he says ‘no’ I’ll tell him 
to go hunt up an asteroid out on 
the Rim and take a swan dive 
off into intergalactic space.” 

She linked her mind with his, 
thinking in affectionate half re- 
proach, “I’d like to, too, Kim, 
but that’s pure baloney. You 
couldn’t — ” she broke off as he 
hurled their joint thought to 
Arisia the Old, going on fran- 
tically: 

“You think at him, Kim, and 
I’ll just listen. He scares me 
into a shrinking, quivering 
pulp!” 

“QX, ace,” he said again. 
Then : “Is it permissible that we 
do what we are about to do?” he 
asked crisply of Arisia’s ancient 
sage. 

“Ah, ’tis Kinnison and Mac- 
Dougall; once of Tellus, hence- 
forth of Klovia,” the calmly un- 
surprised thought rolled in. “I 
was expecting you at this time. 
Any mind, however far from 
competent, could have visualized 
this event in its entirety. That 
which you contemplate is not 
merely permissible; it has now 
become necessary.” And as 
usual, without tapering off or 
leave-taking. Mentor broke the 
line of thought. 

The two clung together rap- 
turously then for minutes, but 
something was obtruding itself 
disquietingly upon the nurse’s 
mind. 

“But his thought was ‘neces- 
sary,’ Kim?” she asked, rather 
than said. “Isn’t there sort of 
a sinister connotation in that, 
somewhere? What did he 
mean?” 

“Nothing — exactly nothing,” 
Kinnison assured her, comfor- 
tably. “He’s got a complete pic- 
ture of the macrocosmic universe 
in his mind — his ‘visualization of 
the Cosmic All,’ he calls it — and 
in it we get married now, just as 
I’ve been telling you we are go- 
ing to. Since it gripes him no 
end to have even the tiniest 
thing not to conform to his visu- 
alization, our marriage is NEC- 



SECOND STAGE LENSMEN 



125 



ESSARY, in capital letters. 
See?” 

“Uh-huh. ... Oh, I’m glad!” 
she exclaimed. “That shows you 
how scared of him I am.” And 
thoughts and actions became 
such that, although they were no 
doubt of much personal pleasure 
and satisfaction, they do not re- 
quire detailed treatment here. 

Clarrissa MacDougall resigned 
the next day, without formality 
or fanfare. That is, she thought 
that she did so then, and rather 
wondered at the frictionless ease 
with which it went through; it 
had simply not occurred to her 
that in the instant of being made 
an Unattached Lensman she had 
been freed automatically from 
every man-made restraint. That 
was one of the few lessons hard 
for her to learn ; it was the only 
one which she refused consis- 
tently even to try to learn. 

Nothing was said or done 
about the ten thousand credits 
which had been promised her 
upon the occasion of her fifteen- 
rninutes-long separation from the 
Patrol following the fall of Jar- 
nevon. She thought about it 
briefly, but with no real sense of 
loss. Some way or other, money 
did not seem important. Any- 
way, she had some — enough for 
a fairly nice, if limited, trous- 
seau — in the bank upon Tallus. 
She could undoubtedly get it 
through the Disbursing Office 
here. 

She took off her Lens and 
stuffed it into a pocket. That 
wasn’t so good, she reflected. It 
bulged, and besides, it might fall 
out; and anyone who touched it 
would die. She didn’t have a 
bag ; in fact, she had with her no 
civilian clothes at all. Where- 
fore she put it back upon her 
wrist, pausing as she did so to 
admire the Manarkan star drop 
flashing pale fire from the third 
finger of her left hand. Of all 
his gems, Cartiff had retained 
only this one, the loveliest. It 
was a beauty. 

It was not far to the Disburs- 
ing Office, so she walked; win- 



dow-shopping as she went. It 
was a peculiar sensation, this be- 
ing out of harness — it felt good, 
though, at that — and upon arriv- 
ing at the bank she found to her 
surprise that she was both well 
known and expected. An officer 
whom she had never seen before 
greeted her cordially and led her 
into his private office. 

“We have been wondering why 
you didn’t pick up your kit, 
Lensman MacDougall,” he went 
on, briskly. “Sign here, please, 
and press your right thumb in 
this box here, after peeling off 
this plastic strip, so.” She wrote 
in her boldly flowing script, and 
peeled, and pressed ; and 
watched fascinatedly as her 
thumbprint developed itself 
sharply black against the bluish 
off-white of the Patrol’s station- 
ery. “That transfers your bal- 
ance upon Tellus to the Patrol’s 
general fund. Now sign and 
print this, in quadruplicate. 
Thank you. Here’s your kit. 
When this book of slips is gone 
you can get another one at any 
bank or Patrol station anywhere. 
It has been a real pleasure to 
have met you, Lensman Mac- 
Dougall; come in again when- 
ever you happen to be upon 
Thrale.” And he escorted her to 
the street as briskly as he had 
ushered her in. 

Clarrissa felt slightly dazed. 
She had gone in there to get the 
couple of hundred credits which 
represented her total wealth ; but 
instead of getting it she had 
meekly surrendered her savings 
to the Patrol and had been given 
— what? She leafed through the 
little book. One hundred blue- 
white slips ; small things, smaller 
than currency bills. A little 
printing, two lines for descrip- 
tion, a blank for figures, a space 
for signature, and a plastic-cov- 
ered oblong area for thumbprint. 
That was all — but what an all! 
Any one of those slips, she 
knew, would be honored without 
hesitation or question for any 
amount of cash money she 
pleased to draw; for any object 
or thing she chose to buy. Any- 



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thing — absolutely anything — 

from a pair of half-credit stock- 
ings up to and beyond a hun- 
dred-million-credit spaceship. 
ANYTHING! The thought 
chilled her buoyant spirit, took 
away her zest for shopping, 

“Kim, I can’t!” she wailed 
through her Lens. “Why didn’t 
they give me my own money and 
let me spend it the way I 
please?” 

“Hold everything, ace — I’ll be 
with you in a sec.” He wasn’t — 
quite — but it was not long. “You 
can get all the money you want, 
you know — just give them a 
chit.” 

“I know, but all I wanted was 
my own money. I didn’t ask for 
this stuff!” 

“None of that, Chris — ^when 
you get to be a Lensman, you’ve 
got to take what goes with it. 
Besides, if you spend money 
foolishly all the rest of your life, 
the Patrol knows that it will still 
owe you plenty for what you did 
on Lyrane II. Where do you 
want to begin?” 

“Brenleer’s,” she decided, after 
she had been partially convinced. 
“They aren’t the largest, but 
they give real quality at a fair 
price.” 

At the shop the two Lensmen 
were recognized at sight and 
Brenleer himself did the honors. 

“Clothes,” the girl said suc- 
cinctly, with an all-inclusive 
wave of her hand. “All kinds of 
clothes, except nurse’s uni- 
forms.” 

They were ushered into a pri- 
vate room and Kinnison wrig- 
gled as mannequins began to 
appear before them in various 
degrees of enclothement. 

“This is no place for me,” he 
declared. “I’ll see you later, 
Chris. How long — half an hour 
or so?” 

“Half an hour!” The nurse 
giggled, and: 

“She will be here all the rest 
of today, and most of the time 
for a week,” the couturier in- 
formed him severely — and she 
was. 



“Oh, Kim, I’m having the most 
marvelous time!” she told him 
excitedly, a few days later. “But 
it makes me feel sick to think of 
how much of the Patrol’s money 
I’m spending.” 

“You may think that you’re 
spending money, but you aren’t,” 
he informed her, cryptically. 

“Huh? What do you mean?” 
she demanded, but he would not 
talk. 

She found out, however, after 
the long-drawn-out business of 
selecting and matching and de- 
signing and fitting was over. 

“You have seen me in civvies 
only a couple of times, and I got 
myself all prettied up in the 
beauty shop.” She posed pro- 
vocatively. “Do you like me, 
Kim?” 

“Like you!” The man could 
scarcely speak. She had been a 
seven-sector call-out in faded 
moleskin breeches and a patched 
shirt. She had been a thionite 
dream in uniform. But now — 
radiantly, vibrantly beautiful, a 
symphony in her favorite dark 
green, “Words fail, ace. 
Thoughts, too. They fold up 
and quit. The universe’s best, is 
all I can say — ” 

And — later — they sought out 
Brenleer. 

“I would like to ask you to do 
me a tremendous favor,” the 
merchant said hesitantly, with- 
out filling any of the blanks 
upon the credit slip the girl had 
proffered. “If, instead of pay- 
ing for these things, you would 
write upon this voucher the date 
and ‘my fall outfit and much of 
my trousseau were made by 
Brenleer of Thrale — ’?” His 
voice expired upon a wistful 
note. 

“Why ... I never even 
thought of such a thing. 
Would it be quite ethical, do you 
think, Kim?” 

“You said that he gives value 
for price, so I don’t see why not. 
Lots of things they never let any 
of us pay for — ” Then, to Bren- 
leer, “Never thought of that 
angle, of what a terrific draw she 
would be. I suppose that this 






SECOND STAGE LENSMEN 



127 



business of yours is worth fifty 
thousand credits more right now 
than it was before she cut loose 
here, and that it’ll be worth 
twice that much when you have 
this chit unobtrusively displayed 
in a gold-and-platinum frame 
four feet square.” 

The man nodded. “Twice that 
already, but there isn’t money 
enough upon Thrale to buy it,” 

“I’m not surprised,” Kinnison 
grinned understandingly. “But 
you might as well give him a 
break, Chris. What tore it was 
your buying the stuff here, not 
admitting the fact over your sig- 
nature and thumbprint.” 

She did so and they went out. 

“Do you mean to tell me that 
I’m so . . . so — ” 

“Famous? Notorious?” he 
helped out. 

“Uh-huh. Or words to that 
effect.” A touch of fear dark- 
ened her glorious eyes. 

“All of that, and then some,” 
he declared. “I never thought of 
what your buying so much plun- 
der in one store would do, but 
it’d have the pulling power of a 
planetary tractor. It’s bad 
enough with us regulars — half 
the chits we sign are never 
cashed — but you are absolutely 
unique. The first Lady Lens- 
man — the only Red Lensman — 
and what a Lensman! Wow! 
As I think it over one gets you 
a hundred if any chit you ever 
sign ever will get cashed. There 
have been collectors, you know, 
ever since Civilization began — 
maybe before.” 

“But I don’t like it!” she 
stormed. 

“That won’t change the facts,” 
he countered, philosophically. 
“Are you ready to flit? The 
Dauntless is hot, they tell me.” 
, “Uh-huh, all my stuff is 
aboard.” And soon they were en 
route to Klovia. 

The trip was uneventful, and 
even before they reached that 
transformed planet it became 
evident that it was theirs from 
pole to pole. Their cruiser was 
met by a horde of spaceships of 



all types and sizes, which formed 
a turbulent and demonstrative 
escort of honor. The seething 
crowd at the spaceport could 
scarcely be kept out of range of 
the dreadnought’s searing land- 
ing blasts. Half the brass bands 
of the world, it seemed, burst 
into “Our Patrol” as the Lens- 
men disembarked, and their 
ground car and the street along 
which it slowly rolled were dec- 
orated lavishly with deep-blue 
flowers. 

“Thorn flowers!” Clarrissa 
choked. “Thralian thorn flowers, 
Kim — how could they?” 

“They grow here as well as 
there, and when they found out 
that you liked them so well they 
imported them by the shipload” 
— and Kinnison himself swal- 
lowed a lump. 

Their brief stay upon Klovia 
was a hectic one indeed. Par- 
ties and balls, informal and 
formal, and at least a dozen tele- 
news poses every day. Recep- 
tions, at which there were pre- 
sented the personages and the 
potentates of a thousand plan- 
ets; at which the uniforms and 
robes and gowns put the solar 
spectrum to shame. 

And from tens of thousands of 
planets came Lensmen, to make 
or to renew acquaintance with 
the Galactic Co-ordinator and to 
welcome into their ranks the 
Lensman-bride. From Tellus, of 
course, they came in greatest 
number and enthusiasm, but other 
planets were not too far behind. 
They came from Manark and Ve- 
lantia and Chickladoria and Al- 
sakan and Vandemar, from the 
worlds of Canopus and Vega and 
Antares, from all over the Gal- 
axy. Human, near-human, nonhu- 
man, monstrous; there even ap- 
peared briefly quite large num- 
bers of frigid-blooded Lensmen, 
whose fiercely laboring refrigera- 
tors chilled the atmosphere for 
yards around their insulated and 
impervious suits. All those vari- 
ous beings came with a united 
purpose, with a common thought 
—to congratulate Kinnison of 
Tellus and to wish his Lensman- 



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ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION 



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MAKE UP TO l2’.-535 WEEK AS A TRAINED practical nursel 
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Help Wanted — Instructions 



HOTELS CALL FOR TRAINED MEN AND WOMEN. Good 
pay. Learn at home. Write Lewis Hotel Training Schools, 
Room AC-12al>, Washington. D. C. 



Help Wanted’— Female 



SPECIAL AVORK FOR WOMEN. Demonstrate lovely dresses ia 
your home. Earn to $18.00 weekly, get own dresses free. No in- 
vestment. Give age, dress size. Faaltion Frocks. Desk 

^ncinnati, O. 

CALL ON FRIEM>s' wrra CARD Assortments: 

Easter, Birthday, other occasions. Personal Stationery; Gift W'^rap* 
pings. Big profttB. Experience unnecessary. Samples on approval. 

Wallace Broun. 2 '5 Fifth Av., Dpt. G-Ill, New York. 

.qET.T. DRFS~SES LOW AS $1.24. Hundreds sensational bar- 
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Dept. 0076, t’lnctnnatl. Ohio. 



Baby Chicks 

COLONIAL la P^RST. World's Largest Chick Producer. Why? 
Because Colonial has the Prlcesl The Layers! The Service! 
Send poBteard for Free Catalog, Cut-Price* and Balanced Income 
Plan. Colonial Poultry Fa^ros, Pleasant Hill, Mo. 



Old Mon ey Wanted 

OLD MONEY WANTED. Do you know that Coin Collectors pay 
up to $1011.00 for certain U. S, Cents? And high premiums for 
all rare coins? I buy all kinds. Rend 4c for Large Coin Folder. 
May m^'an much profit to you. B. Max Mohl. 440 Mehl Bldg., 
Fort Worth. Texas. 



t:;ey wanted warriors* 

Warriors — Rghting men of every age! 

They bad a chain of recruiting stations that 
stretched across the world — and across ail the 
ages! 

They spread their recruiting stations from 
the days of Alexander to the days of World 
War XVIII, from Tierra del Fuego to Mur- 
mansk. 

The tale of that war that bad to recruit 
across ten thousand years of time is 

“RECRUITINe STATION" 

By A. E. van Vo9t 

In the March Astounding Science-Fiction. 



mate all the luck and all the hap- 
piness of the universe. 

Kinnison was surprised at the 
sincerity with which they ac- 
claimed him; he was amazed at 
the genuineness and the inten- 
sity of their adoption of his 
Chris as their own. He had been 
afraid that some of them would 
think that he was throwing his 
weight around when he violated 
precedent by making her a Lens- 
man. He had been afraid of ani- 
mosity and ill will. He had been 
afraid that outraged masculine 
pride would set up a sex antag- 
onism. But if any of these 
things existed, the keenest use 
of his every penetrant sense 
could not discover them. 

Instead, the human Lensmen 
literally mobbed her as, en 
masse, they took her to their col- 
lective bosom. No party, wher- 
ever or for what reason held, was 
complete without her. If she 
ever had less than ten escorts at 
once, she was slighted. They 
ran her ragged, they danced her 
slippers off, they stuffed her to 
repletion, they would not let her 
sleep, they granted her the pri- 
vacy of a goldfish — and she loved 
every tumultuous second of it. 

She had wanted, as she had 
told Haynes and Lacy so long 
ago, a big wedding ; but this one 
was already out of hand and was 
growing more so by the minute. 
The idea of holding it in a 
church had been abandoned long 
since; now it became clear that 
the biggest armory of Klovia 
would not hold even half of the 
Lensmen, to say nothing of the 
notables and dignitaries who had 
come so far. It would simply 
have to be the Stadium; a bowl 
so vast that no previous crowd 
had filled one tenth of its seats. 
Seeing and hearing there were 
excellent, however, as the spec- 
tators did not look at the scene 
itself, but into visiplates com- 
fortably close. 

Even the Stadium could not 
accommodate that throng, hence 
speakers and plates were run 
outside, clear up to the space- 
field fence. And, although nei- 



ther of the principals knew it, 
this marriage had so fired public 
interest that Universal Telenews 
men had^ already arranged the 
hookup which was to carry it to 
every planet of Civilization. 
The number of entities who thus 
saw and heard that wedding has 
been estimated, but the figures 
are too fantastic to be repeated 
here. 

But it was in no sense a circus. 
No ceremony ever held, in home 
or in church or in cathedral, was 
ever more solemn. For when 
half a million Lensmen concen- 
trate upon solemnity, it prevails 
— no levity is possible within a 
radius of miles. 

The whole vast bowl was gay 
with flowers — it seemed as 
though a state must have been 
stripped of blooms to furnish so 
many — and ferns and white rib- 
bons were ever5nvhere. There 
was a mighty organ, which 
pealed out triumphal melody as 
the bridal parties marched down 
the aisles, subsiding into a 
lilting accompaniment as the be- 
trothed couple ascended the 
white-brocaded stairway and 
faced the Lensman-chaplain in 
the heavily garlanded little 
open-air chapel. The minister 
raised both hands. The massed 
Patrolmen and nurses stood at 
attention. A profound silence 
fell. 

“Dearly beloved — ’’ The grand 
old service — short and simple, 
but utterly impressive — was soon 
over. Then, as Kinnison kissed 
his wife, half a million Lensed 
members were thrust upward in 
silent salute. 

Through a double lane of flow^ 
ing Lenses the wedding party 
made its way up to the locked 
and guarded gate of the space- 
field, upon which lay the Daunt- 
less — the superdreadnought 

“yacht” in which the Kinnisons, 
were to take a honeymoon voy- 
age to distant Tellus. The gate 
opened. The couple, accom- 
panied by the port admiral and 
the surgeon general, stepped 
into the car, which sped out to 
the battleship; and as it did so 




SECOND STAGE LENSMEN 



129 . 



the crowd loosed its pent-up 
feelings in a prolonged outburst 
of cheering. 

And as the newlyweds walked 
up the gangplank, Kinnison 
turned his head and shouted to 
Haynes : 

“You’ve been griping so long 
about Lyrane VIII, fhief — I for- 
got to say that you can go mop 
up on it now!” 

ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

Your historian, not wishing to take 
credit which is not rightfully his, 
wishes to say here that without the 
fine co-operation of many persons 
and entities this history must have 
been of much less value and impor- 
tance than it now is. 

First, of course, there were the 
Lensmeu. It is unfortunate that 
'Madceck of Palain VII could not be 
induced either to release his spool of 
the Fall of Onlo or to enlarge upon 
his other undertakings. 

Co-ordinator Kinnison, Worsel of 
Velantia, and Tregonsee of Rigel 
IV, however, were splendidly co- 
operative, giving in personal conver- 

THE 



sations much highly useful material 
which is not heretofore of public 
record. The gracious and queenly 
Red Lensman also was of great as- 
sistance. 

Dr. James R. Enright was both 
prolific and masterly in deducing 
that certain otherwise necessarily 
obscure events and sequences must 
have in fact occurred, and it is grate- 
fully admitted here that the author 
has drawn heavily upon “Dr. Jim’s” 
profound knowledge of the mind. 

The Galactic Roamers, those in- 
trepid spacemen, assisted no little: 
E. Everett Evans, their chief com- 
munications officer, Paul Leavy, Jr., 
Alfred Ashley, F. Edwin Counts; to 
name only a few who aided in the 
selection, arrangement, and presenta- 
tion of material. 

Verna Trestrail, the exquisite con- 
noisseuse, was of help, not only by 
virtue of her knowledge of the jew- 
els of Lonabar, but also in her inter- 
pretations of many things concern- 
ing Illona Potter of which Illona 
Henderson — characteristically — will 
not speak. 

To all these, and to many others 
whose help was only slightly less, 
the writer extends his sincere thanks. 

Edward E. Smith. 

END. 






IF SEEING'S BELIEVING— 

It’s naturally not too hard to spot the really bright suns — 
the stars of great intrinsic brilliance rather than mere apparent 
brilliance. They don’t hide their light under bushels or anything 
else. If you’re interested, here’s a list of the readily located stars 
visible from the United States which are 2,000 or more times as 
luminous as the Sun. (And the Sun is, remember, considerably 
more brilliant that the average star; there are many l/10,000th as 
bright as Sol, but very few 10,000 times as bright.) 

Star 

Deneb — Abs. Mag. -8.7, 260,000 times as bright as the Sun- Distant 3,200 
light years. Visible May to January, in the tail of Cygnus, the Swan. 
Also forms the top of the Northern Cross. Greatest intrinsic brilliance 
of any star visible from Earth without a telescope. 

Rigel — Abs. Mag. -5.7, 17,500 times as bright as the Sun. Distant 540 light 
years. It forms the left foot of Orion, visible from November to April. 

Bellatrix — Abs. Mag. -4.4, 5,000 times the Sun. Distant 540 light years. 
Also in Orion. It forms the Hunter’s left shoulder, and visible also from 
November to April. 

Epsilon Orio — Abs. Mag. -3.7, 2,600 times the Sun. Distant 400 light years. 
The constellation Orion is unique in the number of enormously brilliant 
suns forming it; Alpha Orio— the brightest in apparent magnitude — is 
Betelgeuse, Abs. Mag. -3.5. Second in apparent brightness, and hence Beta 
Orio, is Rigel,. second brightest in absolute brilliance of stars visible 
without telescopic aid. Bellatrix is Gamma Orio. Epsilon Orio is ap- 
parently brighter than the second magnitude, but with so many still more 
brilliant stars nearby, acquired no common name. 

Spica — Abs. Mag. -3.6, 2,300 times Sol. Distant 300 light years. Brightest 
star in Virgo, the Virgin. Visible March to August. 

Betelgeuse — Abs. Mag. -3.5, 2,200 times Sol. Distant 270 light years. 
Right shoulder of Orion — visible November to April. 






A'Fff^ElECTI 

IIBMY/ 

1 1.50 A VOLUME /£ 



SI £3 si a ™ ^ 

•®“SSS S2 Sffl ap awu S' 
y .r*^ ^ SS5 a as™ ««?«» "S 



evrav ELECTRICIAN 

H found in AUOIL*S NEW ELECTRIC LIBRARY. ElootrtoHy mod# otaipto 
•s ABC. Up-to>dnto, trado dopo for tho oxitert and ALL olootrloal woricara. 

Quaatlona. anawora. diacrama, ealeulationa. undarwrltar*a aoda; daawit, oon- 
atruatl^ aparatlan and mainwiMMo of madam alaatrical m a ahlaaa and 
•PPUancaa TOLLY COVERED. 

avallablo at amall east, easy torma. BOOK-A-MONTM aarvica puta tMo 
MCW Information In your bands for 6a a day. You ean start subaoriptiea 
wHh any volume* Write TODAY far alaetHe Faldar and PRES TRIAL affar* 

I THEO. AUDEL & CO .,49 W. 23 rd St.* New York City 

Mail Vol. I| Electric Libiarr on 7 days* free trial. If O. K. I will remit S140i 
otherwise I wul return it. I also request you to asil ooa book saca laaa t a oa 
same terms. No obUjAtion unless 1 am satisfied. 



WM 



II Address 

ill Ocoupatioa. J^AC 142 D 

I a IF I Send YOU I 
L ATHIS FINE SUIT— i 

E loeed a reliable mani a yonr town to wears floe made-ta*raaasnre. 

all-wool DEMONSTRATING SUIT— advertiae my famous Ualaii 
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contains over 150 quality wooIens,all seosatSonal vaiueB.guarantaad. 

aHn CASH IN ON PARTIAL PAYMENT PLAN 

Too need no experience or money. I eopply everything required 
free. Write me to^y for FRBE lietaile. 

STONEFIELP, 1300 W. Harrison, Dept.1713, Chicago 
BACK ISSUES ARE STILL AVAILABLE 

We can’t guarantee to 6II all orders for 
back copies, but if you want any of the issues 
of 1941 — you can get them. 

If it’s 1940 numbers you want — your chances 
are excellent. 

If it’s a 1939 Astounding you are after — 
maybe. 

If it’s a 1938, on the mother hand — 

We can only sympathize with you. 

If there are any boles in your hies, 611 ’em 
now by writing to: 

SUBSCRIPTION DEPARTMENT 
Street & Smith Publications, Inc. 

79 Seventh Avenue 
New York City 



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BILL, YOU SURE HAVE A SWELL 



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an actual, untowsfaed 
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Atlas. hold«r of tho 
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Will You Ut Me PROVE 
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What A Difference It Makes When You Wear Lee Union-Alls — Lee Overalls — Lee Shirts & Pants! 

Photos Show Why More Men Buy 1*60 
Than Any Other Union-Made Work Clothes 



Are you ready for a bigger job with more pay?... Will 
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htMt 

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(Fabric Shrinkage Less Than 1%) 



FREE! Write for color swatches, lit- 
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Address Dept. AF-2. 

THE H. D. LEE MERC. COMPANY 

Kansas City, Mo. Minneapolis, Minn. Trenton, N.J. 
South Bend, Ind. San Francisco.Calif. Salina.Kans. 




merica!s Favorite Clothes 



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an exceptional putehjtfwi; 
can 1 sell these compl' ti'-- 
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chines at the sensation-^ 
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of ~0c a wrrk. Kaeh one?", 
carefully jrone over artd^ 
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nnee of a 1 ) 1811(1 m w ainc hia^ost inn civtW 
three times as rtuu'h, Thr onf/. 

lUfj prirr on thift '-w^ 

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A NOISELESS MACHINE 

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choice of TYPISTS’ 



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llcitrhi 
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f for ojilv $3.50 rxtr.i 
[r.nty built. Note all 



$125®2 

NO MONEY OOWN 

10 DAY TRIAL 

Easy Terms — 10c A Day 



No ohiiwntion to buy. Sec machine'' 
on wide open lo day trial. I'ay me 
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'*()* years of faii|[4lealing and my 
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A ebmjdeii* li«>me study course <*f famous Van Rant 
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^ Carefully illustrated. Written c.xpr^BSly for home 



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$.3.00 per n)omh until casjfterm price ($43. Ml Is paid. If I am not satisfied 1 ran 
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I 
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^ w "^Typewritten siqnffhlHf not acepfitable 

I Addivls 

I ^tatG, 

I CAI'TION — For quirk shipment'* give occupation , 



Age. 



and